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A scalable and sensitive steatosis chip with long-term perfusion of in situ differentiated HepaRG organoids. Biomaterials 2021; 275:120904. [PMID: 34119888 DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2021.120904] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2020] [Revised: 05/01/2021] [Accepted: 05/20/2021] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a significant liver disease without approved therapy, lacking human NAFLD models to aid drug development. Existing models are either under-performing or too complex to allow robust drug screening. Here we have developed a 100-well drug testing platform with improved HepaRG organoids formed with uniform size distribution, and differentiated in situ in a perfusion microfluidic device, SteatoChip, to recapitulate major NAFLD features. Compared with the pre-differentiated spheroids, the in situ differentiated HepaRG organoids with perfusion experience well-controlled chemical and mechanical microenvironment, and 3D cellular niche, to exhibit enhanced hepatic differentiation (albumin+ cells ratio: 66.2% in situ perfusion vs 46.1% pre-differentiation), enriched and uniform hepatocyte distribution in organoids, higher level of hepatocyte functions (5.2 folds in albumin secretion and 7.6 folds in urea synthesis), enhanced cell polarity and bile canaliculi structures. When induced with free fatty acid (FFA), cells exhibit significantly higher level of lipid accumulation (6.6 folds for in situ perfusion vs 4.4 folds for pre-differentiation), altered glucose regulation and reduced Akt phosphorylation in the organoids. SteatoChip detects reduction of steatosis when cells are incubated with three different anti-steatosis compounds, 78.5% by metformin hydrochloride, 71.3% by pioglitazone hydrochloride and 66.6% by obeticholic acid, versus the control FFA-free media (38% reduction). The precision microenvironment control in SteatoChip enables improved formation, differentiation, and function of HepaRG organoids to serve as a scalable and sensitive drug testing platform, to potentially accelerate the NAFLD drug development.
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Tasnim F, Singh NH, Tan EKF, Xing J, Li H, Hissette S, Manesh S, Fulwood J, Gupta K, Ng CW, Xu S, Hill J, Yu H. Tethered primary hepatocyte spheroids on polystyrene multi-well plates for high-throughput drug safety testing. Sci Rep 2020; 10:4768. [PMID: 32179810 PMCID: PMC7075904 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-61699-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/08/2019] [Accepted: 02/19/2020] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Hepatocyte spheroids are useful models for mimicking liver phenotypes in vitro because of their three-dimensionality. However, the lack of a biomaterial platform which allows the facile manipulation of spheroid cultures on a large scale severely limits their application in automated high-throughput drug safety testing. In addition, there is not yet a robust way of controlling spheroid size, homogeneity and integrity during extended culture. This work addresses these bottlenecks to the automation of hepatocyte spheroid culture by tethering 3D hepatocyte spheroids directly onto surface-modified polystyrene (PS) multi-well plates. However, polystyrene surfaces are inert toward functionalization, and this makes the uniform conjugation of bioactive ligands very challenging. Surface modification of polystyrene well plates is achieved herein using a three-step sequence, resulting in a homogeneous distribution of bioactive RGD and galactose ligands required for spheroid tethering and formation. Importantly, treatment of polystyrene tethered spheroids with vehicle and paradigm hepatotoxicant (chlorpromazine) treatment using an automated liquid handling platform shows low signal deviation, intact 3D spheroidal morphology and Z’ values above 0.5, and hence confirming their amenability to high-throughput automation. Functional analyses performance (i.e. urea and albumin production, cytochrome P450 activity and induction studies) of the polystyrene tethered spheroids reveal significant improvements over hepatocytes cultured as collagen monolayers. This is the first demonstration of automated hepatotoxicant treatment on functional 3D hepatocyte spheroids tethered directly on polystyrene multi-well plates, and will serve as an important advancement in the application of 3D tethered spheroid models to high throughput drug screening.
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Affiliation(s)
- Farah Tasnim
- Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, #04-01, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore, 138669, Singapore
| | - Nisha Hari Singh
- Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, #04-01, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore, 138669, Singapore
| | - Elijah Keng Foo Tan
- Mechanobiology Institute, T-Labs, #05-01, 5A Engineering Drive 1, Singapore, 117411, Singapore.,Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (Department of Physiology) and Graduate School for Integrative Sciences & Engineering (NGS), National University of Singapore, MD9-04-11, 2 Medical Drive, Singapore, 117593, Singapore
| | - Jiangwa Xing
- Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, #04-01, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore, 138669, Singapore
| | - Huan Li
- Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, #04-01, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore, 138669, Singapore
| | - Sebastien Hissette
- Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, #04-01, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore, 138669, Singapore
| | - Sravanthy Manesh
- Experimental Therapeutics Centre (ETC), Level 3, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore, 138669, Singapore
| | - Justina Fulwood
- Experimental Therapeutics Centre (ETC), Level 3, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore, 138669, Singapore
| | - Kapish Gupta
- Mechanobiology Institute, T-Labs, #05-01, 5A Engineering Drive 1, Singapore, 117411, Singapore
| | - Chan Way Ng
- Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (Department of Physiology) and Graduate School for Integrative Sciences & Engineering (NGS), National University of Singapore, MD9-04-11, 2 Medical Drive, Singapore, 117593, Singapore
| | - Shuoyu Xu
- Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, #04-01, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore, 138669, Singapore
| | - Jeffrey Hill
- Experimental Therapeutics Centre (ETC), Level 3, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore, 138669, Singapore.,Sussex Drug Discovery Centre, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN19RH, UK
| | - Hanry Yu
- Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, #04-01, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore, 138669, Singapore. .,Mechanobiology Institute, T-Labs, #05-01, 5A Engineering Drive 1, Singapore, 117411, Singapore. .,Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (Department of Physiology) and Graduate School for Integrative Sciences & Engineering (NGS), National University of Singapore, MD9-04-11, 2 Medical Drive, Singapore, 117593, Singapore. .,CAMP IRG, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, 1 CREATE Way, Enterprise Wing, Level 4, Singapore, 138602, Singapore.
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