Liver cell culture is an essential step when developing new drugs or modelling diseases. When developing new drugs, time and costs can be cut down by ensuring the relevance and reliability of the modelled liver cells already early on, so toxic drugs can be caught in the early phases of the development process.
Get more relevant and functional liver cell models with GrowDex® hydrogels
Improve your results by growing cells in more human-like environment with GrowDex 3D cell culture hydrogels. Ensure the structural & functional relevance of your drug development or disease modelling liver cell assays.
Key benefits of GrowDex for liver cell modelling
- Long-term toxicity and efficacy assays without matrix interference
- Easy automation and scaling up of assays (up to 1536-well plate format)
- In vivo -like functionality with retained CYP activities and albumin secretion
More human-like 3D environment
GrowDex hydrogels act as a scaffold for your cells, giving them a supportive 3D environment to grow like in the human body. The GrowDex matrices mimic the stiffness of tissues. Primary hepatocytes, liver organoids and cell lines remain functional up to 35 days, which makes it possible to perform long-term repeated dose studies. Drugs diffuse through GrowDex and reach the cultured cells without the matrix interfering.
Albumin secretion by primary hepatocytes measured during the 4 weeks experiment indicates good liver cell functionality in GrowDex.
Easy automation up to 1536 well-plates
GrowDex hydrogels have been proven successful in automations scaled up to even 1536 well-plates. GrowDex hydrogels are made of nanofibrillar cellulose and water, making them consistent materials that do not show lot-to-lot variations. GrowDex hydrogels can be handled in room temperature, making them excellent for high throughput assays and handling with pipetting robots or dispensers. You can embed your organoids in GrowDex after organoid formation to keep them in optimal matrix stiffness. The stiffness of GrowDex hydrogels does not change during long assays and it prevents organoids from clumping together.
A. Spheroids cultured in GrowDex remain in 3D and do not clump to the bottom of the well, as GrowDex can be dispensed with pipettes and automation in higher viscousity and the viscousity remains the same in long term cultivation.
B. Spheroids cultured in low concentration of Basement Membrane Extracts (BME) sink in the bottom of the well and clump as the low BME concentration is not viscous enough to keep cells in their place.
In vivo -like functionality
Work in vitro whilst allowing your cells to function like in vivo. Cells growing in GrowDex have shown to keep their CYP enzyme activity up to 35 days. In addition, in our matrix cells secrete albumin like liver cells in vivo. With functional cells you get more representative data from your toxicity and efficacy assays.
HepaRG cells cultured in GrowDex, hyaluronan-gelatin gel or in 2D. CYP3A4 enzyme activity was inducible, and it was higher in GrowDex (NFC) than in 2D or hyaluronan-gelatin (HG) HepaRG cultures.
Learn how you can:
- Get more relevant liver models that mimic the physiological 3D environment and stiffness
- Automate your screening and dispensing easily for even 1536 well-format with proven repeatability
- Maintain liver cell functionality better than before
- Long-term toxicity and efficacy assays