Possible applications of the Slug Mucosal Irritation assay

Safety testing is obliged for all pharmaceutical, industrial, household and cosmetic products prior to placing them on the market, to investigate whether products or their ingredients adversely affect human health or the environment after intentional or accidental exposure.
In the past, safety testing strongly relied on animal testing (e.g. Draize eye and skin irritation test [1]). In the course of time these tests have been criticized strongly. There is an inherent variability, resulting mainly from biological differences between the animals used in the experiments, the subjectivity in scoring behavior of assessors and the limited sample size, leading to variability within and between test laboratories. Furthermore, the tests are not a perfect reference and their relevance for human irritation has not been taken into account [2, 3], not to forget the humane aspect of the use of animals. These points of criticism also apply for other in vivo testing methods.