Three-dimensional culture of human proximal tubular epithelial cells for an in vitro evaluation of drug-induced kidney injury

Introduction PrimeSurface Research Papers

Three-dimensional culture of human proximal tubular epithelial cells
for an in vitro evaluation of drug-induced kidney injury

Hiroshi Arakawa, Daichi Higuchi, Etsushi Takahashi, Kohei Matsushita, Shiho Nedachi, Hanwei Peng, Moeno Kadoguchi,
Kaoru Morimura, Ayano Araki, Masayuki Kondo, Naoki Ishiguro, Yoichi Jimbo and Ikumi Tamai

J. Pharm. Sci. 113, 3255 - 3264 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xphs.2024.08.009

Copyright © Authors 2024
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY).

Background

Drug-induced kidney injury (DIKI) is a major cause of failure in drug discovery and development. Animal experiments are being conducted to evaluate DIKI, but due to their low sensitivity, the development of human in vitro systems with a high predictive ability is desirable for drug discovery and development.
Renal proximal tubule epithelial cells (RPTEC) are useful for evaluating RPTEC injury in vitro, but conventional two-dimensional culture models show low expression of drug transporters and are not suitable for the evaluation of DIKI mediated by a wide range of drug transporters.

Research Achievements

The group constructed 3D-RPTEC spheroids with higher OAT1 mRNA expression, attaining levels comparable with those in human kidney cortices. In this study, they investigated the utility of 3D-RPTECs for evaluating RPTEC injury by monitoring intracellular ATP levels as a cytotoxic indicator. The predictive performance of 3D-RPTECs was higher than that of two-dimensional cultured RPTECs and the kidney cell line HK-2. In conclusion, 3D-RPTECs are useful for in vitro evaluation of RPTEC injury by measuring intracellular ATP levels.

Use of PrimeSurface™ in this study

PrimeSurfaceTM 96V plates were used for spheroid formation of 3D-RPTEC.
Cell and seeding density: RPTECs from LONZA, 1000 cells/well
Culture medium: Renal Epithelial Cell Growth Medium (REGM) BulletKit™（LONZA）
Incubation condition: Medium was replaced every 2–3 days. Ten to 14 days after seeding, a nephrotoxicity study was conducted.