Abstract:
Steatotic liver disease (SLD) refers to a spectrum of diseases caused by hepatic lipid accumulation. SLD has emerged as the leading cause of chronic liver disease worldwide. Despite this burden and many years, understanding the pathophysiology of this disease is challenging due to the inaccessibility to human liver specimens. Therefore, cell-based in vitro systems are widely used as models to investigate the pathophysiology of SLD. Culturing hepatic cells in monolayers causes the loss of their hepatocyte-specific phenotype and, consequently, tissue-specific function and architecture. Hence, three-dimensional (3D) culture models allow cells to mimic the in vivo microenvironment and spatial organization of the liver unit. The utilization of 3D in vitro models minimizes the drawbacks of two-dimensional (2D) cultures and aligns with the 3Rs principles to alleviate the number of in vivo experiments. This article provides an overview of liver 3D models highlighting advantages and limitations, and culminates by discussing their applications in pharmaceutical and biomedical research.
摘要:
脂肪性肝病(SLD)是指由肝脏脂质积累引起的一系列疾病。SLD已成为全球慢性肝病的主要原因。尽管有这样的负担和许多年,由于人类肝脏标本难以接近,因此了解这种疾病的病理生理学具有挑战性。因此,基于细胞的体外系统被广泛用作研究SLD病理生理学的模型。在单层中培养肝细胞会导致其肝细胞特异性表型的丧失,因此,组织特异性功能和结构。因此,三维(3D)培养模型允许细胞模拟体内微环境和肝脏单位的空间组织。3D体外模型的利用使二维(2D)培养物的缺点最小化,并且与3Rs原理对齐以减少体内实验的数量。本文概述了肝脏3D模型,突出了优点和局限性,并最终讨论了它们在制药和生物医学研究中的应用。