Advancing Environmental Toxicology In Vitro: From Immortalized Cancer Cell Lines to 3D Models Derived from Stem Cells

In recent years, rapid industrial development has resulted in the production and exposure of a substantial number of compounds to the human body. This has created an urgent need in environmental toxicology for models that are efficient, accurate, and cost-effective in evaluating the health impacts of these compounds on humans. Over the past seven decades, various cancer cell lines and immortalized cell lines have made significant contributions to the advancement of research on organ toxicity. Pluripotent stem cell technology, especially toxicological models derived from pluripotent stem cells, presents modern environmental toxicologists with high-throughput, species-relevant, and predictive options. In this comprehensive review, we assess the characteristics of representative human cancer cell lines and immortalized cell lines in environmental toxicology, as well as introduce two distinct human pluripotent stem cell types and their innovative toxicological models. We explore their applications and prospects in the field of environmental toxicology, while also addressing the readiness of in vitro models to confront the emerging challenges of the future.