Establishment of an in vitro high-throughput screening assay for detecting phospholipidosis-inducing potential

Excessive accumulation of phospholipids results in phospholipidosis (PL), which may interfere with cellular functions, leading to acute or chronic disease or even death. Electron-microscopic detection of cytoplasmic lamellar bodies is often used as a diagnostic criterion of PL, but a faster, more convenient procedure is required for high-throughput assay of the PL-inducing potential of candidate drugs. We have developed a 96-well microplate cell-culture method for detecting PL, using a phosphatidylcholine-conjugated dye (NBD-PC) and a fluoro-microplate reader. The fluorescence intensity due to NBD-PC was normalized to that of Hoechst33342, used as an indicator of cell number, to obtain the amount of NBD-PC taken up per living cell. To select a suitable cell type, we examined the PL-detection sensitivity of five cell lines, as well as human and rat primary hepatocyte cultures, with five cationic amphiphilic drugs (CAD) as PL inducers and a negative control compound. The cell lines CHO-K1 and CHL/IU gave the best results. The NBD-PC uptake per CHO-K1 cell showed a high correlation with the pathological score of PL for 24 compounds, including PL-positive and negative compounds. This high-throughput screening assay for PL-inducing potential (HTS-PL assay) offers high sensitivity and accuracy, and it allows simultaneous determination of cytotoxicity.