Electrophysiological Measurements of a Toad Renal Epithelial Cell Line (A6) as an Assay for Predicting Ocular Eye Irritancy

An established epithelial cell line (A6) from a South African clawed toad (Xenopus laevis) kidney was used as a model for the corneal epithelium of the eye in order to determine ocular irritancy. When grown on Millipore filter inserts, A6 cells form a monolayer epithelium of high electrical resistance and generate a trans-epithelial potential difference. These two easily-measured electrophysiological endpoints showed a dose-related decrease after exposure for 24 hours to seven selected chemicals of different ocular irritancy potential. It was demonstrated that both trans-epithelial resistance and potential ranked closely with in vivo eye irritancy data and correlated well (r = 0.96) with loss of trans-epithelial impermeability of Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells, detected by use of a fluorescein leakage assay.