bims-orenst 2022-07-10 papers

Issue of 2022‒07‒10
two papers selected by
Joram Mooiweer
University of Groningen

ALTEX. 2022 Jun 21.

A rodent thyroid-liver chip to capture thyroid toxicity on organ functional level.

Diana Karwelat, Julia Kühnlenz, Thomas Steger-Hartmann, Remi Bars, Helen Tinwell, Uwe Marx, Sophie Bauer, Oliver Born, Marian Raschke.

Endocrine disruption by environmental chemicals continues to be a concern for human safety. The rat, a widely used model organism in toxicology, is very sensitive to chemical-induced thyroid perturbation, e.g. histopathological alterations in thyroid tissue. Species differences in the susceptibility to thyroid perturbation lead to uncertainty in human safety risk assessments. Hazard identification and characterization of chemically induced thyroid perturbation would therefore benefit from in vitro models addressing different mechanisms of action in a single functional assay, ideally across species. We here introduce a rat thyroid-liver chip that enables simultaneous identification of direct and indirect (liver-mediated) thyroid perturbation on organ-level functions in vitro. A second manuscript describes our work toward a human thyroid-liver chip (Kühnlenz et al., 2022). The presented microfluidic model consisting of primary rat thyroid follicles and liver 3D spheroids maintain a tissue-specific phenotype for up to 21 days. More precisely, the thyroid model exhibits a follicular architecture expressing basolateral and apical markers and secretes T4. Likewise, liver spheroids retain hepatocellular characteristics, e.g. a stable release of albumin and urea, the presence of bile canalicular networks, and the formation of T4-glucuronide. Experiments with reference chemicals demonstrated proficiency to detect direct and indirect mechanisms of thyroid perturbation through decreased thyroid hormone secretion and increased gT4 formation, respectively. Prospectively this rat thyroid-liver chip model, together with its human counterpart, may support a species-specific quantitative in vitro to in vivo extrapolation to improve a data-driven and evidence-based human safety risk assessment with significant contributions to the 3R principles.

Keywords: T4 glucuronidation; endocrine disruption; liver enzyme activation; organs-on-a-chip; thyroid hormone inhibition

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14573/altex.2108262

Curr Protoc. 2022 Jul;2(7): e478

Co-Culture of Human Primary Hepatocytes and Nonparenchymal Liver Cells in the Emulate® Liver-Chip for the Study of Drug-Induced Liver Injury.

Qiang Shi, Ayesha Arefin, Lijun Ren, Katy S Papineau, Dustyn A Barnette, Laura K Schnackenberg, Jessica J Hawes, Mark Avigan, Donna L Mendrick, Lorna Ewart, Janey Ronxhi.

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is a significant public health issue, but standard animal tests and clinical trials sometimes fail to predict DILI due to species differences and the relatively low number of human subjects involved in preapproval studies of a new drug, respectively. In vitro models have long been used to aid DILI prediction, with primary human hepatocytes (PHHs) being generally considered the gold standard. However, despite many efforts and decades of work, traditional culture methods have been unsuccessful in either fully preserving essential liver functions after isolation of PHHs or in emulating interactions between PHHs and hepatic nonparenchymal cells (NPCs), both of which are essential for the development of DILI under in vivo conditions. Recently, various liver-on-a-chip (Liver-Chip) systems have been developed to co-culture hepatocytes and NPCs in a three-dimensional environment on microfluidic channels, enabling better maintenance of primary liver cells and thus improved DILI prediction. The Emulate® Liver-Chip is a commercially available system that can recapitulate some in vivo DILI responses associated with certain compounds whose liver safety profile cannot be accurately evaluated using conventional approaches involving PHHs or animal models due to a lack of innate immune responses or species-dependent toxicity, respectively. Here, we describe detailed procedures for the use of Emulate® Liver-Chips for co-culturing PHHs and NPCs for the purpose of DILI evaluation. First, we describe the procedures for preparing the Liver-Chip. We then outline the steps needed for sequential seeding of PHHs and NPCs in the prepared Liver-Chips. Lastly, we provide a protocol for utilizing cells maintained in perfusion culture in the Liver-Chips to evaluate DILI, using acetaminophen as an example. In all, use of this system and the procedures described here allow better preservation of the functions of human primary liver cells, resulting in an improved in vitro model for DILI assessment. © 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC. This article has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA. Basic Protocol 1: Liver-Chip preparation Basic Protocol 2: Seeding primary human hepatocytes and nonparenchymal cells on Liver-Chips Basic Protocol 3: Perfusion culture for the study of acetaminophen-induced liver injury.

Keywords: DILI; MPS; drug-induced liver injury; hepatotoxicity; human primary hepatocytes; liver-on-a-chip; microphysiological systems

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/cpz1.478