Comparisons between in vitro whole cell imaging and in vivo zebrafish-based approaches for identifying potential human hepatotoxicants earlier in pharmaceutical development

Abstract

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is a major cause of attrition during both the early and later stages of the drug development and marketing process. Reducing or eliminating drug-induced severe liver injury, especially those that lead to liver transplants or death, would be tremendously beneficial for patients. Therefore, developing new pharmaceuticals that have the highest margins and attributes of hepatic safety would be a great accomplishment. Given the current low productivity of pharmaceutical companies and the high costs of bringing new medicines to market, any early screening assay(s) to identify and eliminate pharmaceuticals with the potential to cause severe liver injury in humans would be of economic value as well. The present review discusses the background, proof-of-concept, and validation studies associated with high-content screening (HCS) by two major pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer Inc and Jansen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson) for detecting compounds with the potential to cause human DILI. These HCS assays use fluorescent-based markers of cell injury in either human hepatocytes or HepG2 cells. In collaboration with Evotec, an independent contract lab, these two companies also independently evaluated larval zebrafish as an early-stage in vivo screen for hepatotoxicity in independently conducted, blinded assessments. Details about this model species, the need for bioanalysis, and, specifically, the outcome of the phenotypic-based zebrafish screens are presented. Comparing outcomes in zebrafish against both HCS assays suggests an enhanced detection for hepatotoxicants of most DILI concern when used in combination with each other, based on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration DILI classification list.