Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.
Predicting human developmental toxicity of pharmaceuticals using human stem-like cells and metabolomics

Abstract:

The invention provides biomarker profiles of metabolites and methods for screening chemical compounds including pharmaceutical agents, lead and candidate drug compounds and other chemicals using human stem-like cells (hSLCs) or lineage-specific cells produced therefrom. The inventive methods are useful for testing toxicity, particularly developmental toxicity and detecting teratogenic effects of such chemical compounds. Specifically, a more predictive developmental toxicity model, based on an in vitro method that utilizes both hSLCs and metabolomics to discover biomarkers of developmental toxicity is disclosed.