METHOD AND DEVICE

• US 20080200346A1
• Filed: 02/11/2008
• Published: 08/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NCIMB Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Phplate Stockholm AB
• Inventors: McKenzie, John Douglas, Iversen, Aina, KUHN, Inger, Colque-Navarro, Patricia, Gabrielson, Jenny, Hart, Mark Christopher
• Granted Patent: US 8,551,921 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 506/10
• CPC Class Codes: C12Q 1/025 for testing or evaluating the effect of chemical or biological compounds, e.g. drugs, cosmetics antimicrobial activity C12Q1/18

Abstract

An indicator device, and a biological test method, for determining the toxic fingerprint and degree of toxicity, comprising at least 3, preferably at least 11, different microorganisms freeze-dried on an inert support material, wherein the microorganisms are being selected to form a high diversity of microorganisms, on the support material, with regards to the taxonomical tree and high diversity regarding responses to toxic chemicals. Further, a kit and a process for producing the indicator device is also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method for determining, predicting the toxicity, biologic effects of a chemical compound, wherein an array of at least 3 different microbial strains, selected to form a high diversity of microorganisms, and freeze-dried on an inert support material, is exposed to said chemical, whereby said 3 different microbial strains are present in at least 4 repetitive sets and whereby said chemical is added to each set in an increasing concentration, leaving one well of each set unexposed, followed by incubation and determination of the growth of each microbial strain.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising reading a pattern of growth/growth inhibition based on the growth of each microbial strain.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the pattern is transformed to a set of quantitative data indicating the degree of growth inhibition exerted by the chemical compound on each strain.

4. The method according to claim 2, wherein said pattern is compared to previously obtained patterns for chemicals having a known toxicity and the toxicity and/or biologic effects of said compound predicted based on the similarity between the patterns.

5. The method according to claim 3, wherein said data set is compared to previously obtained data for chemicals having a known toxicity and the toxicity and/or biologic effects of said compound predicted based on the similarity between the data.

6. The method according to claim 4, wherein previously obtained data sets and/or patterns are clustered in the form of a dendrogram and said comparison based on how the data and/or pattern for the compound under study fits into this dendrogram.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least 11 microbial strains are present.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein one repetitive set of wells receives growth medium only.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the microbial strains are selected to form a high taxonomic diversity and high diversity regarding responses to chemical compounds.

10. The method according to claim 5, wherein previously obtained data sets and/or patterns are clustered in the form of a dendrogram and said comparison based on how the data and/or pattern for the compound under study fits into this dendrogram.