Division of Pharmaceutical Technology, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Biomaterial Science Center, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2023 Apr 20;18(4):e0284562. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284562. eCollection 2023.
Nephrotoxicity is an important drug safety aspect to be assessed during drug discovery and development. To study renal toxicity, in vitro cell-based assays are often used. Unfortunately, translating the results of such cell assays to vertebrates including human remains challenging. Therefore, we aim to evaluate whether zebrafish larvae (ZFL) could serve as a vertebrate screening model to detect gentamicin-induced changes of kidney glomeruli and proximal tubules. To validate the model, we compared the results of ZFL with those obtained from kidney biopsies of gentamicin-treated mice. We used transgenic zebrafish lines expressing enhanced green fluorescent proteins in the glomerulus to visualize glomerular damage. Synchrotron radiation-based computed tomography (SRμCT) is a label-free approach providing three-dimensional representations of renal structures with micrometre resolution. Clinically used gentamicin concentrations induce nephrotoxicity and affect glomerular and proximal tubular morphology. Findings were confirmed in mice and ZFL. There was a strong correlation between fluorescent signals in ZFL, SRμCT- derived descriptors of glomerular and proximal tubular morphology and the histological analysis of mouse kidney biopsies. A combination of SRμCT and confocal microscopy provides unprecedented insights into anatomical structures of the zebrafish kidney. Based on our findings, we suggest to use ZFL as a predictive vertebrate screening model to study drug-induced nephrotoxicity and to bridge the gap between cell culture-based test systems and experiments in mammals.
肾毒性是药物发现和开发过程中需要评估的一个重要药物安全性方面。为了研究肾毒性,通常使用基于细胞的体外测定法。不幸的是,将此类细胞测定的结果转化为包括人类在内的脊椎动物仍然具有挑战性。因此,我们旨在评估斑马鱼幼虫(ZFL)是否可以作为脊椎动物筛选模型,以检测庆大霉素引起的肾小球和近端肾小管的变化。为了验证该模型,我们将 ZFL 的结果与庆大霉素处理的小鼠肾脏活检获得的结果进行了比较。我们使用在肾小球中表达增强型绿色荧光蛋白的转基因斑马鱼系来可视化肾小球损伤。基于同步辐射的计算机断层扫描(SRμCT)是一种无标记方法,可提供具有亚微米分辨率的肾脏结构的三维表示。临床使用的庆大霉素浓度会引起肾毒性,并影响肾小球和近端肾小管的形态。在小鼠和 ZFL 中均证实了这一点。ZFL 中的荧光信号、SRμCT 衍生的肾小球和近端肾小管形态描述符以及小鼠肾脏活检的组织学分析之间存在很强的相关性。SRμCT 和共聚焦显微镜的组合提供了对斑马鱼肾脏解剖结构的前所未有的了解。基于我们的发现,我们建议使用 ZFL 作为预测性脊椎动物筛选模型,以研究药物引起的肾毒性,并弥合基于细胞培养的测试系统与哺乳动物实验之间的差距。