1.Establishment of Neurotoxicity Assessment Using Microelectrode Array (MEA) with hiPSC-Derived Neurons and Evaluation of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS)
Kyu-ree KANG ; C-Yoon KIM ; Jin KIM ; Bokyeong RYU ; Seul-Gi LEE ; Jieun BAEK ; Ye-Ji KIM ; Jin-Moo LEE ; Yootmo LEE ; Sun-Ok CHOI ; Dong Ho WOO ; Il Hwan PARK ; Hyung Min CHUNG
International Journal of Stem Cells 2022;15(3):258-269
Background and Objectives:
Currently, safety pharmacological tests for the central nervous system depend on animal behavioral analysis. However, due to the subjectivity of behavioral analysis and differences between species, there is a limit to appropriate nervous system toxicity assessment, therefore a new neurotoxicity assessment that can simulate the human central nervous system is required.
Methods:
and Results: In our study, we developed an in vitro neurotoxicity assessment focusing on neuronal function. To minimize the differences between species and fast screening, hiPSC-derived neurons and a microelectrode array (MEA) that could simultaneously measure the action potentials of the neuronal networks were used. After analyzing the molecular and electrophysiological characters of our neuronal network, we conducted a neurotoxicity assessment on neurotransmitters, neurotoxicants, illicit drugs, and new psychoactive substances (NPS). We found that most substances used in our experiments responded more sensitively to our MEA-based neurotoxicity assessment than to the conventional neurotoxicity assessment. Also, this is the first paper that evaluates various illicit drugs and NPS using MEA-based neurotoxicity assessment using hiPSC-derived neurons.
Conclusions
Our study expanded the scope of application of neurotoxicity assessment using hiPSC-derived neurons to NPS, and accumulated evaluation data of various toxic substances for hiPSC-derived neurons.