toxicological sciences 137(1), 189–211 2014 doi:10.1093/toxsci/kft223 Advance Access publication October 1, 2013 A Correlation Between the In Vitro Drug Toxicity of Drugs to Cell Lines That Express Human P450s and Their Propensity to Cause Liver Injury in Humans Frida Gustafsson,*,1 Alison J. Foster,* Sunil Sarda,† Matthew H. Bridgland-Taylor,† and J. Gerry Kenna2 *Global Safety Assessment and †Discovery Sciences, AstraZeneca, Alderley Park, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK10 4TG, United Kingdom 1To whom correspondence should be addressed at 23S37-69, Molecular Toxicology, Safety Assessment, Alderley Park, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK10 4TG, United Kingdom. Fax: +44(0)1625 513779. E-mail:
[email protected]. 2Present address: Safety Science Consultant, Macclesfield, United Kingdom. Received June 25, 2013; accepted September 12, 2013 drugs cause acute or chronic damage to the liver, which results Drug toxicity to T-antigen–immortalized human liver epi- in symptomatic liver injury but not liver failure, and some thelial (THLE) cells stably transfected with plasmid vectors drugs cause asymptomatic abnormalities in serum clinical that encoded human cytochrome P450s 1A2, 2C9, 2C19, 2D6, chemistry (most notably elevated concentrations of the enzyme or 3A4, or an empty plasmid vector (THLE-Null), was investi- gated. An automated screening platform, which included 1% alanine aminotransferase (ALT), which is released from dam- dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) vehicle, 2.7% bovine serum in the aged hepatocytes). DILI is an important cause of terminated culture medium, and assessed 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5-(3- development or failed registration of otherwise promising new carboxymethoxyphenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium reduc- therapies, of withdrawal of licensed drugs, and of cautionary tion, was used to evaluate the cytotoxicity of 103 drugs after 24 h.