Cytotoxiciy test of cathinones in a human kidney cell model

Abstract

The number of new psychoactive substances (NSP) is continuously growing, completely changing the recreational drug market. Of this wide variety of new substances, a great emphasis is placed on synthetic cathinones. These drugs are known as "bath salts" and appeared on the market as legal substitutes for illicit substances, such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) or cocaine. The use of these substances is often considered harmless, but has actually been linked to several cases of toxicity and deaths. Most toxicological studies to date involve the use of liver or brain in vitro models, with little toxicological information on renal damage. The kidney is one of the excretory organs of these drugs and is therefore exposed to toxicity, this work covers the preliminary study of nephrotoxicity caused by cathinones. For this, a model of human kidney cells (the immortalized cell line HK-2) was exposed for 24h to a wide range of concentrations (0.01-10 mM) of two synthetic cathinones (methylone and MDPV) and the cytotoxicity was evaluated by the assay of reduction of MTT.