Discussion

Primary human hepatocytes are the gold standard in in vitro toxicology studies. However, their limited availability, short life span, inter-donor variation and cost are important limitations for screening assays. Our work strongly indicates that HepG2 liver carcinoma cells grown in the Mimetix scaffold could be used instead to study drug-induced hepatotoxicity. HepG2 cells cultured in the 3D Mimetix tissue culture plate display a primary-like phenotype. They maintain basic functionality (urea and albumin production) and re-acquire metabolic activity of both phase I (CYP450) and phase II enzymes (SULT and UGT) activity over 28 days.