Background and Aims: To better understand nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) disease progression and to evaluate drug targets and compound activity, we undertook the devel-opment of an in vitro 3D model to mimic live...Background and Aims: To better understand nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) disease progression and to evaluate drug targets and compound activity, we undertook the devel-opment of an in vitro 3D model to mimic liver architecture and the NASH environment. Methods:We have developed an in vitro preclinical 3D NASH model by coculturing primary hu-man hepatocytes, human stellate cells, liver endothelial cells and Kupffer cells embedded in a hydrogel of rat collagen on a 96-well plate. A NASH-like environment was induced by ad-dition of medium containing free fatty acids and tumor ne-crosis factor-α. This model was then characterized by biochemical, imaging and transcriptomics analyses. Results:We succeeded in defining suitable culture conditions to main-tain the 3D coculture for up to 10 days in vitro, with the lowest level of steatosis and reproducible low level of inflammation and fibrosis. NASH disease was induced with a custom me-dium mimicking NASH features. The cell model exhibited the key NASH disease phenotypes of hepatocyte injury, steatosis, inflammation, and fibrosis. Hepatocyte injury was highlighted by a decrease of CYP3A4 expression and activity, without loss of viability up to day 10. Moreover, the model was able to stimulate a stable inflammatory and early fibrotic environ-ment, with expression and secretion of several cytokines. A global gene expression analysis confirmed the NASH induc-tion. Conclusions:This is a new in vitro model of NASH dis-ease consisting of four human primary cell-types that exhibits most features of the disease. The 10-day cell viability and cost effectiveness of the model make it suitable for medium throughput drug screening and provide attractive avenues to better understand disease physiology and to identify and characterize new drug targets.展开更多
基金This work was supported by grants from the Agence Nationale pour la Recherche(ANR-16-RHUS-0006-PreciNASH).
文摘Background and Aims: To better understand nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) disease progression and to evaluate drug targets and compound activity, we undertook the devel-opment of an in vitro 3D model to mimic liver architecture and the NASH environment. Methods:We have developed an in vitro preclinical 3D NASH model by coculturing primary hu-man hepatocytes, human stellate cells, liver endothelial cells and Kupffer cells embedded in a hydrogel of rat collagen on a 96-well plate. A NASH-like environment was induced by ad-dition of medium containing free fatty acids and tumor ne-crosis factor-α. This model was then characterized by biochemical, imaging and transcriptomics analyses. Results:We succeeded in defining suitable culture conditions to main-tain the 3D coculture for up to 10 days in vitro, with the lowest level of steatosis and reproducible low level of inflammation and fibrosis. NASH disease was induced with a custom me-dium mimicking NASH features. The cell model exhibited the key NASH disease phenotypes of hepatocyte injury, steatosis, inflammation, and fibrosis. Hepatocyte injury was highlighted by a decrease of CYP3A4 expression and activity, without loss of viability up to day 10. Moreover, the model was able to stimulate a stable inflammatory and early fibrotic environ-ment, with expression and secretion of several cytokines. A global gene expression analysis confirmed the NASH induc-tion. Conclusions:This is a new in vitro model of NASH dis-ease consisting of four human primary cell-types that exhibits most features of the disease. The 10-day cell viability and cost effectiveness of the model make it suitable for medium throughput drug screening and provide attractive avenues to better understand disease physiology and to identify and characterize new drug targets.
