A functional long-term 2D serum-free human hepatic in vitro system for drug evaluation

Microphysiological system to address the opioid crisis: A novel multi-organ model of acute opioid overdose and recovery

Opioids have been the primary method used to manage pain for hundreds of years, however the increasing prescription rate of these drugs in the modern world has led to a public health crisis of overdose related deaths. Naloxone is the current standard treatment for opioid overdose rescue, but it has not been fully investigated for potential off-target toxicity effects. The current methods for pharmaceutical development do not correlate well with pre-clinical animal studies compared to clinical results, creating a need for improved methods for therapeutic evaluation. Microphysiological systems (MPS) are a rapidly growing field, and the FDA has accepted this area of research to address this concern, offering a promising alternative to traditional animal models. This study establishes a novel multi-organ MPS model of acute opioid overdose and rescue to investigate the efficacy and off-target toxicity of naloxone in combination with opioids. By integrating primary human and human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived cells, including preBötzinger complex neurons, liver, cardiac, and skeletal muscle components, this study establishes a novel functional multi-organ MPS model of acute opioid overdose and rescue to investigate the efficacy and off-target toxicity of naloxone in combination with opioids, with clinically relevant functional readouts of organ function. The system was able to successfully exhibit opioid overdose using methadone, as well as rescue using naloxone evidenced by the neuronal component activity. In addition to efficacy, the multi-organ platform was able to characterize potential off-target toxicity effects of naloxone, specifically in the cardiac component.

In Vitro Models for Studying Chronic Drug-Induced Liver Injury

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is a major clinical problem in terms of patient morbidity and mortality, cost to healthcare systems and failure of the development of new drugs. The need for consistent safety strategies capable of identifying a potential toxicity risk early in the drug discovery pipeline is key. Human DILI is poorly predicted in animals, probably due to the well-known interspecies differences in drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, and toxicity targets. For this reason, distinct cellular models from primary human hepatocytes or hepatoma cell lines cultured as 2D monolayers to emerging 3D culture systems or the use of multi-cellular systems have been proposed for hepatotoxicity studies. In order to mimic long-term hepatotoxicity in vitro, cell models, which maintain hepatic phenotype for a suitably long period, should be used. On the other hand, repeated-dose administration is a more relevant scenario for therapeutics, providing information not only about toxicity, but also about cumulative effects and/or delayed responses. In this review, we evaluate the existing cell models for DILI prediction focusing on chronic hepatotoxicity, highlighting how better characterization and mechanistic studies could lead to advance DILI prediction.

A functional hiPSC-cortical neuron differentiation and maturation model and its application to neurological disorders

The maturation and functional characteristics of human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-cortical neurons has not been fully documented. This study developed a phenotypic model of hiPSC-derived cortical neurons, characterized their maturation process, and investigated its application for disease modeling with the integration of multi-electrode array (MEA) technology. Immunocytochemistry analysis indicated early-stage neurons (day 21) were simultaneously positive for both excitatory (vesicular glutamate transporter 1 [VGlut1]) and inhibitory (GABA) markers, while late-stage cultures (day 40) expressed solely VGlut1, indicating a purely excitatory phenotype without containing glial cells. This maturation process was further validated utilizing patch clamp and MEA analysis. Particularly, induced long-term potentiation (LTP) successfully persisted for 1 h in day 40 cultures, but only achieved LTP in the presence of the GABA_A receptor antagonist picrotoxin in day 21 cultures. This system was also applied to epilepsy modeling utilizing bicuculline and its correction utilizing the anti-epileptic drug valproic acid.

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Characterization of human cortical neuronal differentiation to a mature phenotype

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Microelectrode evaluation of development from a mixed to pure excitatory population

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Utilization of defined culture stage to create an epilepsy model

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Manipulation of immaturity with inhibitors for maintaining long-term potentiation

Validation of an adipose-liver human-on-a-chip model of NAFLD for preclinical therapeutic efficacy evaluation

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disease and strongly correlates with the growing incidence of obesity and type II diabetes. We have developed a human-on-a-chip model composed of human hepatocytes and adipose tissue chambers capable of modeling the metabolic factors that contribute to liver disease development and progression, and evaluation of the therapeutic metformin. This model uses a serum-free, recirculating medium tailored to represent different human metabolic conditions over a 14-day period. The system validated the indirect influence of adipocyte physiology on hepatocytes that modeled important aspects of NAFLD progression, including insulin resistant biomarkers, differential adipokine signaling in different media and increased TNF-α-induced steatosis observed only in the two-tissue model. This model provides a simple but unique platform to evaluate aspects of an individual factor's contribution to NAFLD development and mechanisms as well as evaluate preclinical drug efficacy and reassess human dosing regimens.