Comparison of wild-type and high-risk PNPLA3 variants in a human biomimetic liver microphysiology system for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease precision therapy
Authors: Xia Mengying , Varmazyad Mahboubeh , Pla-Palacín Iris , Gavlock Dillon C. , DeBiasio Richard , LaRocca Gregory , Reese Celeste , Florentino Rodrigo M. , Faccioli Lanuza A. P. , Brown Jacquelyn A. , Vernetti Lawrence A. , Schurdak Mark , Stern Andrew M. , Gough Albert , Behari Jaideep , Soto-Gutierrez Alejandro , Taylor D. Lansing , Miedel Mark T. 
Published: September 2024

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is a worldwide health epidemic with a global occurrence of approximately 30%. The pathogenesis of MASLD is a complex, multisystem disorder driven by multiple factors, including genetics, lifestyle, and the environment. Patient heterogeneity presents challenges in developing MASLD therapeutics, creating patient cohorts for clinical trials, and optimizing therapeutic strategies for specific patient cohorts. Implementing pre-clinical experimental models for drug development creates a significant challenge as simple in vitro systems and animal models do not fully recapitulate critical steps in the pathogenesis and the complexity of MASLD progression. To address this, we implemented a precision medicine strategy that couples the use of our liver acinus microphysiology system (LAMPS) constructed with patient-derived primary cells. We investigated the MASLD-associated genetic variant patatin-like phospholipase domain-containing protein 3 (PNPLA3) rs738409 (I148M variant) in primary hepatocytes as it is associated with MASLD progression. We constructed the LAMPS with genotyped wild-type and variant PNPLA3 hepatocytes, together with key non-parenchymal cells, and quantified the reproducibility of the model. We altered media components to mimic blood chemistries, including insulin, glucose, free fatty acids, and immune-activating molecules to reflect normal fasting (NF), early metabolic syndrome (EMS), and late metabolic syndrome (LMS) conditions. Finally, we investigated the response to treatment with resmetirom, an approved drug for metabolic syndrome-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), the progressive form of MASLD. This study, using primary cells, serves as a benchmark for studies using “patient biomimetic twins” constructed with patient induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived liver cells using a panel of reproducible metrics. We observed increased steatosis, immune activation, stellate cell activation, and secretion of pro-fibrotic markers in the PNPLA3 GG variant compared to the wild-type CC LAMPS, consistent with the clinical characterization of this variant. We also observed greater resmetirom efficacy in the PNPLA3 wild-type CC LAMPS compared to the GG variant in multiple MASLD metrics, including steatosis, stellate cell activation, and the secretion of pro-fibrotic markers. In conclusion, our study demonstrates the capability of the LAMPS platform for the development of MASLD precision therapeutics, enrichment of patient cohorts for clinical trials, and optimization of therapeutic strategies for patient subgroups with different clinical traits and disease stages.