Hazard assessments of skin sensitizers are increasingly performed using new approach methodologies (NAMs), with several in chemico, in vitro, and most recently, also defined approaches accepted for regulatory use. However, keeping track of potential limitations of each method to define applicability domains remains a crucial component to ensure adequate predictivity and to facilitate the appropriate selection of method(s) for each hazard assessment task. The objective of this report is to share test results generated with the GARD™skin assay on chemicals that have traditionally been considered difficult to test in some of the conventional in vitro and in chemico OECD Test Guidelines for skin sensitization. Such compounds may include, for example, indirectly acting haptens, hydrophobic substances, and substances of unknown or variable composition, complex reaction products or biological substances (UVCBs). Based on the results of this study, the sensitivity for prediction of skin sensitizing hazard of indirectly acting haptens was 92.4% and 87.5% when compared with local lymph node assay (LLNA) (n = 25) and human data (n = 8), respectively. Similarly, the sensitivity for prediction of skin sensitizing hazard of hydrophobic substances was 85.1% and 100% when compared with LLNA (n = 24) and human data (n = 9), respectively. Lastly, a case study involving assessment of a set of hydrophobic UVCBs (n = 7) resulted in a sensitivity of 100% compared to available reference data. These data provide support for the inclusion of such chemistries in the GARD™skin applicability domain without an increased risk of false negative classifications.
Keywords: GARD skin sensitization applicability domain; GARDskin; difficult to test substances.