PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Xu, Dan AU - Wu, Manhong AU - Nishimura, Sachiko AU - Nishimura, Toshihiko AU - Michie, Sara A. AU - Zheng, Ming AU - Yang, Zicheng AU - Yates, Alexander John AU - Day, Jeffrey S. AU - Hillgren, Kathleen M. AU - Takeda, Saori Takedai AU - Guan, Yuan AU - Guo, Yingying AU - Peltz, Gary TI - Chimeric TK-NOG Mice: A Predictive Model for Cholestatic Human Liver Toxicity AID - 10.1124/jpet.114.220798 DP - 2015 Feb 01 TA - Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics PG - 274--280 VI - 352 IP - 2 4099 - http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/352/2/274.short 4100 - http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/352/2/274.full SO - J Pharmacol Exp Ther2015 Feb 01; 352 AB - Due to the substantial interspecies differences in drug metabolism and disposition, drug-induced liver injury (DILI) in humans is often not predicted by studies performed in animal species. For example, a drug (bosentan) used to treat pulmonary artery hypertension caused unexpected cholestatic liver toxicity in humans, which was not predicted by preclinical toxicology studies in multiple animal species. In this study, we demonstrate that NOG mice expressing a thymidine kinase transgene (TK-NOG) with humanized livers have a humanized profile of biliary excretion of a test (cefmetazole) drug, which was shown by an in situ perfusion study to result from interspecies differences in the rate of biliary transport and in liver retention of this drug. We also found that readily detectable cholestatic liver injury develops in TK-NOG mice with humanized livers after 1 week of treatment with bosentan (160, 32, or 6 mg/kg per day by mouth), whereas liver toxicity did not develop in control mice after 1 month of treatment. The laboratory and histologic features of bosentan-induced liver toxicity in humanized mice mirrored that of human subjects. Because DILI has become a significant public health problem, drug safety could be improved if preclinical toxicology studies were performed using humanized TK-NOG.