Development of a Metabolic Activation System for the Frog Embryo Teratogenesis Assay: Xenpous (Fetax)

The purpose of this study was to develop a metabolic activation system for the Frog Embryo Teratogenesis Assay: Xenopus (FETAX). Metabolism is a significant obstacle for most in vitro developmental toxicity assays and must not be overlooked in a proper screening test. Such a system when incorporated into the FETAX protocol will help eliminate potential false negative and false positive test results. In addition, it will provide meaningful insight into the effect of maternal metabolism on the developmental toxicity of compounds in the environment and workplace. This thesis is divided into four chapters. An introduction to this work is presented in Chapter I, with a review of pertinent literature in Chapter II. Chapter III is a complete manuscript prepared and submitted for publication to the journal, Teratogenesis, Carcinogenesis, and Mutagenesis. The development of a metabolic activation system consisting of Aroclor 1254 induced rat liver microsomes is presented in Chapter III. Chapter IV describes preliminary validation of the metabolic activation system.Zoolog