Development of in vitro three-dimensional co-culture system for metabolic syndrome therapeutic agents.

In the development of new drugs for metabolic diseases, there are many obstacles to overcome, including efficacy and toxicity problems in later stages of drug development. To overcome these problems and predict efficacy and toxicity in early stages, here we constructed a new model of insulin resistance in terms of communication between 3T3-L1 adipocytes and RAW264.7 macrophages by 3D culture and demonstrated that this 3D co-culture model had functional metabolic similarity to adipose tissue in diabetic mice. In addition, a 3D scaffold has an interconnected pore structure that can solve problems of transmission of nutrition and release of metabolites. Finally, we utilized this 3D co-culture system to screen PPARγ antagonists that might have potential as therapeutic agents for diabetes as demonstrated by an in vivo assay. This in vitro 3D co-culture system could serve as a next-generation platform to accelerate the development of therapeutics for metabolic diseases. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.