, 2005 and Shah et al., 2008). The same holds true for the integrity test BLUE which utilizes the absorption learn more of methylene blue as a measure for barrier functionality. In contrast to TWF, TEER, TEWL and BLUE the integrity test ISTD supplies information of the barrier function over the whole experimental period and avoids the elongation of the

test period. But the presence of an additional compound in the donor may influence the absorption characteristic of the test compound because of changes in solubility or saturation levels of the test compound and effects of the solvent on the barrier system (Barry, 1987 and Dugard and Scott, 1986). Due to this influence the inertness of an ISTD must be proven. 3H-sucrose and phenol red have been used as ISTD in the past, but systematic validation and provision of a sufficient dataset is still missing (Balaguer et al., 2006, Pendlington et al., 1997 and Walters et al., 1997). The purpose of the current work was to investigate the suitability of different skin integrity tests to differentiate impaired and intact human skin. Based on the absorption results of four test compounds (testosterone, caffeine, 2-ethyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid (MCPA) and 2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetyl ethylhexylester (MCPA-EHE)) through human and generally

more permeable reconstructed human skin (StrataTest®), the common limit values for the standard integrity methods TEER, TWF and TEWL were selleck chemicals assessed. Additionally, results of five skin integrity tests (TEER, TWF, TEWL, ISTD and BLUE) were correlated to absorption results derived with human skin or reconstructed human skin to evaluate their ability to explain minor differences in barrier function. Full-thickness and dermatomed human skin samples were applied to check for a possible effect of the skin preparation. Due to a lower donor dependency, rat skin was used in addition and chosen for a special experiment in which skin samples were systematically damaged to different grades before Methisazone use. As model ISTD 3H-testosterone

was chosen. It was applied in parallel to test compound 14C-MCPA. For human skin experiments two further well-investigated reference compounds with different physico-chemical properties were applied as ISTDs (3H-caffeine and 3H-mannitol) (OECD, 2004a, Peck et al., 1995, Schäfer-Korting et al., 2008 and van de Sandt et al., 2004) to get an insight on the effect of ISTD selection. Additional experiments were conducted to check for effects of the present ISTDs on the analytics and absorption characteristics of the test compound. MCPA-2EHE, MCPA, dimethylamine (DMA; 60%), silicone antifoam emulsion (SRE) and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) were provided by AH Marks and Co, Wyke, Bradford, Great Britain. Testosterone, caffeine, ethanol and methylene blue were purchased from Sigma Aldrich, St.