Evaluation of the Use of Reporter Antigens in an Auricular Lymph Node Assay to Assess the Immunosensitizing Potential of Drugs. Toxicol Sci 79

Immune-mediated idiosyncratic drug reactions are a major problem for susceptible patients, physicians, and the pharmaceu-tical industry. Validated screening tools to assess the immunosen-sitizing capacity of orally or intravenously administered pharma-ceuticals are currently not available. To date, the popliteal lymph node assay (PLNA) seems the most promising tool for this pur-pose. The PLNA has recently been extended with the use of reporter antigens (RA) that are coinjected together with the drug of interest. The measurement of isotypes of RA-specific antibody-secreting cells (ASC) enables the distinction of sensitizing chemi-cals and (nonsensitizing) irritants without radio-isotopic end points. However, the use of footpad injections raises ethical con-cerns. Therefore, we examined the use of RA after intradermal injection into the ear of BALB/c mice and measured RA-specific ASC in the draining auricular lymph node (ALN). We show tha