UCSF

Drug-induced liver injury is an important cause of non-approval in drug development and the withdrawal of already approved drugs from the market. Screening human hepatic cell lines for toxicity has been used extensively to predict drug-induced liver injury in preclinical drug development. Assessing hepatic-cell health with more diverse markers will increase the value of in vitro assays and help predict the mechanism of toxicity. We describe three live cell-based assays using HepG2 cells to measure cell health parameters indicative of hepatotoxicity. The first assay measures cellular ATP levels using luciferase. The second and third assays are multiparametric high-content screens covering a panel of cell health markers including cell count, mitochondrial membrane potential and structure, nuclear morphology, vacuolar density, and reactive oxygen species and glutathione levels. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC. Basic Protocol 1: Measurement of cellular ATP content Basic Protocol 2: High-content analysis assay to assess cell count, mitochondrial membrane potential and structure, and reactive oxygen species Basic Protocol 3: High-content analysis assay to assess nuclear morphology, vacuoles, and glutathione content Support Protocol 1: Subculturing and maintaining HepG2 cells Support Protocol 2: Plating HepG2 cell line Support Protocol 3: Transferring compounds by pin tool Support Protocol 4: Generating dose-response curves.