Growing knowledge of using embryonic stem cells as a novel tool in developmental risk assessment of environmental toxicants

Developmental toxicology is an important area of novel toxicology. In recent years, there have been big concerns toward the increasing exposure to pharmaceutical agents, food additives, pesticides, occupational toxicants, and environmental pollutants, as well as their possible association with all aspects of male or female-mediated transient or permanent defects in progeny. Therefore, it is of great importance to look for new predictive models to evaluate environmental toxicants before they can harm the human health and embryo development. In this regard, new cell-based in vitro screening models have been developed and validated in predictive toxicology to minimize assay costs and animal usage.Stem cell-based models have been increasingly applied for predicting the toxicity of chemicals. One of the most promising existing in vitro developmental toxicity tests is the validated embryonic stem cell test (EST) which employs marine or human embryonic stem cells to assess the potential of chemicals embryotoxicity. These cells are very suitable for embryotoxicity assessment as they have been demonstrated to specify cellular developmental processes during early embryogenesis and gene expression patterns of differentiation to functionally competent specialized cell types.The present paper aimed at criticizing the human and experimental evidence for developmental toxic effects of environmental toxicants based on ESCs models. Accordingly, pesticides, heavy metals, plasticizers, nanomaterials and some solvents have been considered as the main evaluated environmental toxicants inducing developmental toxicity. At the end, current challenges, pros and cons of using ESCs as an alternative validated in vitro model for specific developmental toxicity screening are discussed.