Since the year 2022, Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. has participated in the AMED project for the development of basic technology towards the industrialization of regenerative medicine and gene therapy. We developed a stirrer pump integrated multi-organ MPS device with Tokai University team and started its test marketing under the brand name of BioStellar^™ Plate in July this year. Here, we would like to introduce a paper we co-authored with the University of Tokyo using this MPS device.

In this study, primary human hepatocytes from chimeric mouse (PXB cells) and human iPS cell-derived small intestinal cells were cocultured. Coculture and oxygen supply increased albumin secretion and multiple CYP activities in PXB cells and maintained the biliary function of small intestinal cells.

Furthermore, the expression of genes related to the arachidonic acid metabolic process was increased in PXB cells cocultured with oxygen supply. It is speculated that the release of bile acids from PXB-cells acted as stimuli for iPSc-derived intestine cells to release lipoprotein, which was ultimately taken by PXB-cells and enhanced CYP activity.

Our MPS device is expected to be a promising technology as an alternative to animal testing in drug discovery.

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