Drug development is a costly and lengthy process with low success rates. To improve the efficiency of drug development, there has been an increasing need in developing alternative methods able to eliminate toxic compounds early in the drug development pipeline. Drug metabolism plays a key role in determining the efficacy of a drug and its potential side effects. Since drug metabolism occurs mainly in the liver, liver cell-based alternative engineering platforms have been growing in the last decade. Microphysiological liver cell-based systems called liver-on-a-chip platforms can better recapitulate the environment for human liver cells in laboratory settings and have the potential to reduce the number of animal models used in drug development by predicting the response of the liver to a drug in vitro. In this review, we discuss the liver microphysiological platforms from the perspective of drug metabolism studies. We highlight the stand-alone liver-on-a-chip platforms and multi-organ systems integrating liver-on-a-chip devices used for drug metabolism mimicry in vitro and review the state-of-the-art platforms reported in the last few years. With the development of more robust and reproducible liver cell-based microphysiological platforms, the drug development field has the potential of reducing the costs and lengths associated with currently existing drug testing methods.

中文翻译：

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用于药物代谢应用的肝脏微生理平台

药物开发是一个昂贵且漫长的过程，成功率低。为了提高药物开发的效率，越来越需要开发能够在药物开发管道早期消除有毒化合物的替代方法。药物代谢在确定药物的功效及其潜在副作用方面起着关键作用。由于药物代谢主要发生在肝脏中，基于肝细胞的替代工程平台在过去十年中一直在发展。称为肝芯片平台的基于微生理肝细胞的系统可以更好地概括实验室环境中人类肝细胞的环境，并有可能通过预测肝脏对肝脏的反应来减少药物开发中使用的动物模型的数量。一种体外药物。在这次审查中，我们从药物代谢研究的角度讨论肝脏微生理平台。我们重点介绍了用于体外药物代谢模拟的独立肝脏芯片平台和集成肝脏芯片设备的多器官系统，并回顾了上次报告的最先进平台数年。随着更强大和可重复的基于肝细胞的微生理平台的开发，药物开发领域有可能降低与当前现有药物测试方法相关的成本和时间。我们重点介绍了用于体外药物代谢模拟的独立肝脏芯片平台和集成肝脏芯片设备的多器官系统，并回顾了上次报告的最先进平台数年。随着更强大和可重复的基于肝细胞的微生理平台的开发，药物开发领域有可能降低与当前现有药物测试方法相关的成本和时间。我们重点介绍了用于体外药物代谢模拟的独立肝脏芯片平台和集成肝脏芯片设备的多器官系统，并回顾了上次报告的最先进平台数年。随着更强大和可重复的基于肝细胞的微生理平台的开发，药物开发领域有可能降低与当前现有药物测试方法相关的成本和时间。