AN IN VITRO ALTERNATIVE ASSAY TO PREDICT THE HUMAN EYE IRRITATION POTENTIAL OF PROTIC IONIC LIQUIDS USED AS TEXTILE DYEING MEDIUM

The HET-CAM (Hen’s Egg Chorioallantoic Membrane) assay is a qualitative alternative method to the in vivo Draize Rabbit Eye test to assess the irritancy potential of chemicals. In this work, for the first time, the ophthalmic irritation of 13 different protic ionic liquids has been evaluated using ImageJ and PhotoScape image processing programs to analyze the results of the HET-CAM assay. The irritation potential of a substance can be semi-quantified using these computational tools by observing blood vessel changes, such as lysis, hemorrhage and coagulation. In conclusion, the modification of the established HET-CAM assay made it possible to determine the damage to minute blood vessels, highlighting the low-irritant profile of some studied protic ionic liquids to the ocular tissues. These results should guide their use as solvents or additives of safe human use, in agreement with the predictions based on their designed chemical structure.