The complexity of chemical components of herbal medicines often causes great barriers to toxicity research. In our previous study, we have found the critical divergent hepatotoxic potential of a pair of stilbene isomers in a famous traditional Chinese herb, Polygonum multiflorum (Heshouwu in Chinese). However, the high-throughput in vitro evaluation for such stereoisomerism-dependent hepatotoxicity is a critical challenge. In this study, we used a hepatic organoids–based in vitro hepatotoxic evaluation system in conjunction with using high content imaging to differentiate in vivo organ hepatotoxicity of the 2,3,5,4′-tetrahydroxy-trans-stilbene-2-O-β-glucoside (trans-SG) and its cis-isomer (cis-SG). By using such an organoid platform, we successfully differentiated the two stereoisomers’ hepatotoxic potentials, which were in accordance with their differences in rodents and humans. The lesion mechanism of the toxic isomer (cis-SG) was further found as the mitochondrial injury by high-content imaging, and its hepatotoxicity could be dose-dependently inhibited by the mitochondrial protective agent. These results demonstrated the utility of the organoids-based high-content imaging approach in evaluating and predicting organ toxicity of natural products in a low-cost and high-throughput way. It also suggested the rationale to use long-term cultured organoids as an alternative toxicology platform to identify early and cautiously the hepatotoxic new drug candidates in the preclinical phase.
中草药化学成分的复杂性往往给毒性研究带来巨大障碍。在之前的研究中,我们发现了一种著名的传统中草药何首乌中的一对二苯乙烯异构体具有关键的不同肝毒性潜能。然而,对这种立体异构体依赖性肝毒性进行高通量体外评估是一项严峻的挑战。在这项研究中,我们使用了基于肝脏类器官的体外肝毒性评估系统,并结合使用高内容成像技术来区分2,3,5,4′-四羟基-反式二苯乙烯-2-O-β-葡萄糖苷(反式-SG)及其顺式异构体(顺式-SG)的体内器官肝毒性。利用这种类器官平台,我们成功地区分了这两种立体异构体的肝毒性潜能,这与它们在啮齿动物和人类体内的差异是一致的。通过高分辨率成像,我们进一步发现了毒性异构体(顺式-SG)的损伤机制为线粒体损伤,并且线粒体保护剂可以剂量依赖性地抑制其肝脏毒性。这些结果表明,基于器官组织的高内涵成像方法可以低成本、高通量地评估和预测天然产物的器官毒性。它还提出了使用长期培养的器官组织作为另一种毒理学平台,在临床前阶段及早、谨慎地识别具有肝毒性的候选新药的合理性。