Peptide hydrogels: A 3D in vitro model for liver toxicity.

由于缺乏捐赠者，肝脏疾病是一个重大的医疗负担。全球严重依赖动物试验，使用各种动物，药物开发停止的主要原因是继发性肝毒性。在美国和欧洲，与停药相关的最常见毒性是肝脏毒性，占21%。该项目利用了一种工程化的3D培养系统，该系统使用模拟肝脏微环境的自组装肽水凝胶维持肝细胞特异性功能，用于肝脏毒性测试。将对最佳凝胶的材料物理和化学性质、细胞行为（使用生物化学测定、免疫细胞化学/成像以及基因和蛋白质表达）进行表征，以确定可在长期培养中支持适当细胞的最佳凝胶系统，该系统可使细胞对毒素产生反应。这可能是一个合适的体外3D培养平台，用于肝毒性测试。

Liver diseases are a significant medical burden, due to the lack of donors. There is a heavy global reliance on animal testing with a wide variety of animals used, and a major cause of cessation of drug development is secondary liver toxicity. The most common toxicity associated with drug withdrawals in the US and Europe are hepatic at 21%. This project exploits an engineered 3D culture system that maintains hepatocyte specific functions for liver toxicity testing using self-assembled peptide hydrogels that mimic the hepatic microenvironment. Optimal gels will be characterised for material physical and chemical properties, cell behaviour (using biochemical assays, immunocytochemistry/imaging and gene and protein expression), to determine the optimal gel system that can support the appropriate cells in long term culture, that can allow the cells to respond to toxins. This may then prove to be an appropriate in vitro 3D culture platform for liver toxicity testing.