Mechanisms of human hepatobiliary transporter gene regulation in the hepatocyte-like cell line HepaRG

Background&Aim: Functional studies on human hepatic gene regulation are limited due to the lack of suitable models. Currently used human hepatoma cell lines such as HepG2 or Huh7 are deficient in several transporters such as NTCP or BSEP whereas primary human hepatocytes and freshly prepared liver slices are limited in availability. The highly differentiated hepatic cell line HepaRG, which exhibits a hepatocyte-like equipment with various CYP P450s, nuclear receptors and a broad range of hepatobiliary transporters, represents an ideal model system to study human transporter gene regulation (LeVee et al. 2006, An…