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Species-Specific Hepatocyte Drug Effects in a Liver Microphysiological System publication
Filed under: DILI and Safety toxicology
This in vitro cross-species liver microphysiological system publication from a collaborative team of academic and industrial researchers entitled “Comparative Analysis of Species-Specific Hepatocyte Function and Drug Effects in a Liver Microphysiological System PhysioMimix LC12 and 96-Well Plates” describes the development and evaluation of human, cynomolgus monkey, dog, and rat liver microphysiological system (Liver-on-a-chip) models for cross-species Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) studies using PhysioMimix from CN Bio (Naga et al., 2025).
Key takeaways
CN Bio’s PhysioMimix is suitable for:
- evaluating cross-species differences in DILI
- longer-term in vitro studies
- complex, or latent mechanisms of hepatotoxicity
- delivering liver functionality and health biomarkers
- enhanced mechanistic insights via transcriptomic analysis
Publication overview
Led by Texas A&M University, the paper compares Liver MPS data generated using Multi-chip Liver 12 plates to “classic” 2D cell culture assays (in 96-well plates) to compare the accuracy of PhysioMimix in detecting liver toxicity.
Following exposure to a variety of compounds, known to cause DILI, including bosentan, fialuridine, and chlorpromazine that exhibit inter-species differences, the results of their study cite that CN Bio’s PhysioMimix System “represents a sensible model for longer-term in vitro studies, particularly in cases where hepatotoxicity may arise through complex or delayed mechanisms”.
The authors recommend incorporating transcriptomics profiling into analysis workflows, rather than relying solely on liver functionality and health biomarkers (albumin, urea, bile acids, AST, ALT, etc.). Offering large amounts of recoverable liver microtissue for post-culture analysis, PhysioMimix is particularly well-suited to this task, delivering enhanced mechanistic insights from each chip in the Multi-chip Liver-12 plate (without the need to pool samples, as is the case for smaller scale spheroid/organoid approaches).
The publication’s authors cite the cost and throughput of running these types of experiments as limitations; however, CN Bio has since developed a higher-throughput Liver-48 plate to reduce Liver MPS costs by 75% and increase throughput up to 288 samples per run, whilst still delivering the same level of data integrity.
This impactful publication was picked up by the editorial team at Science Where Do We Stand With “Liver-on-a-Chip” Technology?, who cite “This new paper is one of the best I’ve seen in this area” with the author stating “The company behind these [CN Bio] is one of the major suppliers of advanced assay systems of this sort, and to the best of my knowledge, this is pretty much the state of the art for what you can buy to run your own assays with”.
Why is this cross-species liver microphysiological system publication important?
Regulatory change towards phasing out animal testing within safety toxicology is happening! These translatability tools enable the direct evaluation of preclinical test species in vitro Liver microphysiological system (MPS) and in vivo-derived data to demonstrate their predictability. Furthermore, when compared to data derived using their human counterparts using tool compounds, these models provide insights into potential interspecies differences that, when applied to real-world scenarios, better inform next step decision making.
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Discover how to utilize our cross-species models to inform next-step decision making via our DILI in vitro Contract Research Services here.
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