Issue 18, 2013

Chip-based liver equivalents for toxicity testing – organotypicalness versus cost-efficient high throughput

Abstract

Drug-induced liver toxicity dominates the reasons for pharmaceutical product ban, withdrawal or non-approval since the thalidomide disaster in the late-1950s. Hopes to finally solve the liver toxicity test dilemma have recently risen to a historic level based on the latest progress in human microfluidic tissue culture devices. Chip-based human liver equivalents are envisaged to identify liver toxic agents regularly undiscovered by current test procedures at industrial throughput. In this review, we focus on advanced microfluidic microscale liver equivalents, appraising them against the level of architectural and, consequently, functional identity with their human counterpart in vivo. We emphasise the inherent relationship between human liver architecture and its drug-induced injury. Furthermore, we plot the current socio-economic drug development environment against the possible value such systems may add. Finally, we try to sketch a forecast for translational innovations in the field.

Graphical abstract: Chip-based liver equivalents for toxicity testing – organotypicalness versus cost-efficient high throughput

Article information

Article type
Critical Review
Submitted
20 Feb 2013
Accepted
17 Apr 2013
First published
31 Mai 2013

Lab Chip, 2013,13, 3481-3495

Chip-based liver equivalents for toxicity testing – organotypicalness versus cost-efficient high throughput

E. Materne, A. G. Tonevitsky and U. Marx, Lab Chip, 2013, 13, 3481 DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50240F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements