Issue 6, 2022

In vitro-based human toxicity effect factors: challenges and opportunities for nanomaterial impact assessment

Abstract

The growing number of nanomaterials being produced represents a challenge for the assessment of their toxicity impacts in life cycle assessment (LCA). The human toxicity effect factor, indicating the population incidence risk caused by chemical exposure, is traditionally estimated from in vivo animal test data; however, this kind of study is being reduced in favor of in vitro testing. In this perspective, we identify the peculiarities of nanomaterials compared to chemicals, and how this affects, or should affect, the LCA toxicity characterization methodology within the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) step. Then, we also discuss both the challenges and the opportunities of integrating in vitro data into LCIA, such as the scarcity of chronic in vitro experiments and avoiding inter-species extrapolation. Moreover, we show the acceptable uncertainty space for in vitro-derived toxicity effect factors for nanomaterials, based on the range of uncertainty of toxicity effect factors for chemicals. Last, we advocate that using in vivo data as a benchmark for the accuracy of derived human toxicity effect factors may in certain cases be misleading. While the adaptation of the LCIA toxicity characterization methodology for nanomaterials and in vitro data is not yet achieved, cross-discipline discussions are a fundamental step towards a successful integration of both new data sources and new substance types into LCIA.

Graphical abstract: In vitro-based human toxicity effect factors: challenges and opportunities for nanomaterial impact assessment

Article information

Article type
Perspective
Submitted
05 11月 2021
Accepted
29 3月 2022
First published
06 5月 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2022,9, 1913-1925

In vitro-based human toxicity effect factors: challenges and opportunities for nanomaterial impact assessment

D. Romeo, R. Hischier, B. Nowack, O. Jolliet, P. Fantke and P. Wick, Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2022, 9, 1913 DOI: 10.1039/D1EN01014J

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements