Alternatives to animal testing in toxicity testing: Current status and future perspectives in food safety assessments

The development of alternative methods to animal testing has gained great momentum since Russel and Burch introduced the 3Rs concept of Reduction, Refinement, and Replacement of animals in safety testing in 1959. Several alternatives to animal testing have since been introduced, including but not limited to in vitro and in chemico test systems, in silico models, and computational models (e.g., [quantitative] structural activity relationship models, high-throughput screens, organ-on-chip models, and genomics or bioinformatics) to predict chemical toxicity. Furthermore, several agencies have developed robust integrated testing strategies to determine chemical toxicity. The cosmetics sector is pioneering the adoption of alternative methodologies for safety evaluations, and other sectors are aiming to completely abandon animal testing by 2035. However, beyond the use of in vitro genetic testing, agencies regulating the food industry have been slow to implement alternative methodologies into safety evaluations compared with other sectors; setting health-based guidance values for food ingredients requires data from systemic toxicity, and to date, no standalone validated alternative models to assess systemic toxicity exist. The abovementioned models show promise for assessing systemic toxicity with further research. In this paper, we review the current alternatives and their applicability and limitations in food safety evaluations.

Automated summary

The development of alternative methods to animal testing has gained great momentum since the introduction of the 3Rs concept. Various alternatives, such as in vitro and computational models, have been introduced to predict chemical toxicity. While the cosmetics sector is pioneering the adoption of these methods, the food industry lags behind in implementing alternative methodologies for safety evaluations, particularly for systemic toxicity assessment. This paper reviews the current alternatives and their applicability and limitations in food safety evaluations.