The Use of Liver Cell Cultures Derived from Different Mammalian Species in In Vitro Toxicological Studies: Implementation in Extrapolation Models?

In vitro techniques can be applied to obtain insight into the organotoxic potential of compounds and in the underlying mechanisms of action. During the last few decades the applicability of these techniques in toxicology has been demonstrated for an increasing number of cell types. Cultured hepatocytes have been shown to provide convenient in vitro systems for studying the role of biotransformation in the toxicity of a compound. The use of in vitro systems derived from a range of species may lead to a better understanding of species differences in the toxicity of xenobiotics, thus improving interspecies extrapolations. The applicability of this approach will be illustrated with results from experiments on the biotransformation and cytotoxicity of bromobenzene, the in vitro inducibility of biotransformation enzyme systems and the effects of hypolipidemics in primary hepatocyte cultures derived from a numberof animals.