A connected multi-organ microphysiological platform designed to model hepatic metabolism, renal handling, drug-induced organ toxicity, and liver-kidney crosstalk under controlled microfluidic conditions.
- Overview
- Platform
- Advantages
- FAQs
Overview
The liver and kidney are central organs in drug disposition, metabolism, detoxification, and clearance. The liver is a major site of xenobiotic metabolism and bile-related processing, while the kidney plays a key role in filtration, secretion, reabsorption, and elimination of many drugs and metabolites. Interactions between these two organs can strongly influence systemic exposure, metabolite accumulation, therapeutic response, and toxicity risk.
Traditional in vitro assays often evaluate hepatic metabolism and renal toxicity separately. Although these models are valuable, they may not fully capture sequential organ processing, metabolite-mediated nephrotoxicity, or soluble-factor-mediated liver-kidney communication. Animal studies provide whole-organism context, but species differences in drug metabolism, transporter expression, renal physiology, and toxicity mechanisms can limit translation to humans.
Liver-Kidney-on-a-Chip is a multi-organ microphysiological system that connects a hepatic compartment with a renal compartment through controlled microfluidic flow. This platform enables researchers to study how compounds are metabolized by the liver, how parent compounds or metabolites are handled by kidney cells, and how liver-derived or kidney-derived signals may influence downstream organ responses.
What Is Liver-Kidney-on-a-Chip?
Liver-Kidney-on-a-Chip is a microengineered platform that integrates liver and kidney tissue models in a connected fluidic system. It is designed to reproduce selected functional aspects of the liver-kidney axis, including:
- Compartmentalized hepatic and renal culture chambers
- Controlled inter-organ transport of drugs, metabolites, nutrients, and soluble mediators
- Hepatic metabolism, detoxification, and toxicity-related responses
- Renal epithelial function, transporter-related handling, and nephrotoxicity-related endpoints
- Time-dependent analysis of parent compounds, metabolites, biomarkers, and organ-specific responses
Compared with isolated static cultures, this connected platform provides a more integrated approach for evaluating pharmacokinetics-related processes, drug-induced liver injury, drug-induced kidney injury, and metabolite-driven toxicity mechanisms.
Fig. 1. The diagram of the liver-kidney-on-a-chip (Huang W, et al., 2024).
Our Liver-Kidney-on-a-Chip Platform
Our Liver-Kidney-on-a-Chip platform links a functional hepatic module with a renal epithelial module in a controlled microfluidic device, supporting metabolism, renal transport-related studies, and organ-specific toxicity analysis.
Key Features
- Integrated liver-kidney model: Connects hepatic metabolism with downstream renal exposure.
- Controlled microfluidic flow: Enables defined transfer of compounds, metabolites, and soluble factors.
- Functional hepatic module: Supports metabolism, viability, and liver biomarker analysis.
- Renal epithelial module: Enables kidney-specific response and nephrotoxicity-related assessment.
- Analytical compatibility: Suitable for imaging, ELISA, qPCR, LC-MS/MS, transporter assays, and cytotoxicity testing.
System Design & Validation
The system uses separated but fluidically connected liver and kidney compartments, allowing tissue-specific culture conditions while maintaining controlled inter-organ communication.
- Liver module: Assessed for morphology, viability, albumin secretion, urea production, and CYP activity.
- Kidney module: Evaluated for epithelial integrity, viability, polarity, and selected renal transporter or injury markers.
- Flow connection: Supports time-course sampling and defined delivery of liver-processed compounds to the kidney compartment.
- Quality control: Includes chip integrity, sterility, leakage testing, cell viability, and flow stability checks.
Applications
The platform can be applied to liver-kidney axis and compound safety studies, including:
- Drug metabolism and clearance studies: Evaluate hepatic processing and downstream renal exposure.
- Metabolite-mediated nephrotoxicity: Study renal effects of liver-generated metabolites.
- Drug-induced liver and kidney injury: Assess organ-specific toxicity within a connected system.
- Transporter-related studies: Investigate selected hepatic and renal transport processes depending on model configuration.
- Mechanistic toxicology: Analyze links between metabolism, oxidative stress, inflammation, and organ injury biomarkers.
Why Choose Our Liver-Kidney-on-a-Chip
- Connected metabolism-clearance model for studying hepatic processing together with renal exposure.
- Improved relevance for safety assessment compared with isolated liver or kidney cultures.
- Dynamic microfluidic environment enabling controlled inter-compartment transport and time-dependent sampling.
- Flexible tissue configuration with primary cells, cell lines, iPSC-derived cells, organoid-derived cells, or co-culture models depending on project goals.
- Customizable endpoints for metabolism, transporter-related studies, viability, oxidative stress, inflammation, and organ injury biomarkers.
FAQs
Q: What makes Liver-Kidney-on-a-Chip different from separate liver and kidney culture models?
The key difference is controlled organ connectivity. In a Liver-Kidney-on-a-Chip system, compounds can be exposed to the liver compartment and then transferred to the kidney compartment through microfluidic flow, allowing researchers to study hepatic metabolism and downstream renal responses in a single integrated model.
Q: Can this platform be used to study metabolite-mediated kidney toxicity?
Yes. The platform is well suited for studies where hepatic metabolism may generate metabolites that influence kidney cells. Parent compounds and metabolites can be measured using appropriate analytical methods, while kidney responses can be assessed through viability, transporter-related endpoints, and injury biomarkers.
Q: What endpoints can be measured using Liver-Kidney-on-a-Chip?
Common endpoints include hepatic viability, albumin secretion, urea production, CYP activity, parent drug depletion, metabolite formation, renal epithelial integrity, transporter-related function, kidney injury biomarkers, inflammatory cytokines, oxidative stress markers, gene expression, immunostaining, and cytotoxicity markers such as LDH, ALT, AST, KIM-1, or NGAL.
Advance metabolism, clearance, and organ toxicity studies with a connected Liver-Kidney-on-a-Chip platform.
Contact us today to discuss chip configuration, cell model selection, exposure design, analytical endpoints, and customized study solutions.
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