title: [Embryonic stem cell test in screening of medicine and other chemicals].
abstract: The technique of embryonic stem cell test (EST) has been developed and used in vitro to screen new medicines and other chemicals. According to toxicity, such medicines and chemicals can be classified as: non-toxic, weak toxic and/or strong toxic. EST shows merits such as no requirement of the sacrifice of pregnant animals, no side-effects on human or animals for candidate medicines and chemicals, higher sensitivity of embryonic stem cells when compared with the sensitivity of ordinary tissues of adult samples in toxicologic researches, higher accuracy when combined with computing techniques, and possible quantitation based on techniques of molecular biology. Advances in utility of EST technique were reviewed and the prospect of technique was also discussed in this paper.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Cell Biology and Tumor Cell Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Jinsen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D000826:Animal Testing Alternatives; D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000187:drug effects*; D002460:Cell Line; D053595:Embryonic Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000187:drug effects*; D006801:Humans; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000378:metabolism; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013723:Teratogens / Q000633:toxicity*; D018675:Toxicity Tests / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D013723:Teratogens