A three-dimensional mouse liver organoid platform for assessing EDCs metabolites simulating liver metabolism

Environ Int. 2025 Jan 3:195:109184. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2024.109184. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Hepatic metabolism is an important process for evaluate the potential activity and toxicity of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) metabolites. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has advocated the development of in vitro assays that mimic in vivo hepatic metabolism to eventually replace classical animal tests. In response to this need, we established a 3D mouse liver organoid (mLO) platform that mimics the animal model and is distinct from existing models. We evaluated the effects the activity of EDC metabolites generated through mLOs based on human cell-based reporter gene assays in addition to existing models. This study emphasizes the importance of hepatic ex-vivo and suggests the need a new metabolic model through a 3D mLOs platform. These results indicate that mLOs provides a novel biological method to screen for potential endocrine-disrupting activities of EDC metabolites.

Keywords: Bioactivation; Endocrine-disrupting chemicals; Liver metabolism; Mouse liver organoids; OECD test guideline.