“…Many of the studies have used primary cells and these have shown that 3D culture prolongs crucial liver-like functionality in primary rat (Brophy et al , 2009; Schutte et al , 2011), porcine (Nelson et al , 2010), and human hepatocytes (Tostoes et al , 2012). Spheroid formation maintains cytochrome P450 expression (Adachi et al , 2011) enhances drug efflux activities (Oshikata et al , 2011) and preserves (compared with adult liver) gene expression of several key hepatic markers (including adhesion molecules, transcription factors, metabolic enzymes including cytochrome P450, and transporters) (Sakai et al , 2010). Although most studies have used primary hepatocytes, there are several reports in the literature that illustrate that immortal hepatocytes also can recover crucial liver-like functionality and that this might increase their value for toxicological studies (Elkayam et al , 2006; Selden et al , 2000; Xu et al , 2003a,b).…”