Acta Medica Medianae
Vol. 51, No 2, June, 2012
UDK 61
ISSN 0365-4478(Printed version)
ISSN 1821-2794(Online)

Correspondence to:

Mihajlo Jakovljevic

Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology

Faculty of Medicine

University of Kragujevac

E- mail: jakovljevicm@medf.kg.ac.rs

Review article                                                                                       

UDC: 615:5764

doi:10.5633/amm.2012.0207

Pharmacological in vitro models in pre-clinical drug testing - example of hSERT transfected human embryonic kidney cells

 Mihajlo Jakovljević¹ and Olivera Milovanović²

University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Kragujevac, Serbia¹

University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pharmacy, Kragujevac, Serbia²

Preclinical drug testing should be considered an important stage during examinations of its efficiency and safety in any likely indication observed. Purpose of the process is acquisition of substantial amount of particular drug-related data before approaching clinical trials in humans. Historical preclinical testing relied on available testing in microbe cultures and animal models. During recent decades laboratory techniques of human cell lines cultivation have been developed and improved. These provide unique possibility of drug acting mechanism testing in a simplified environment lacking basic homeostatic mechanisms. Some examples of these are measuring drug impact to biochemical transport, signaling or anabolic processes. Humane cell lines of embrional kidney 293 are an example of easy-to-grow and disseminate and quite endurable cell line. This methodological article notices some of the details of HEK293 cells cultivation and breading. We took transfection as an example of in vitro model creation for drug testing. Transfection refers to gene introduction into HEK293 cellular genome in order to achieve membrane expression of coded protein. In our case it would be human serotonin transporter. Article contains description of one particular methodological approach in measuring human serotonin transporter expression. The role and importance of serotonin pump in affective disorders genesis was already widely recognized. Aim of the paper was to emphasize feasibility of cell cultivation and its advantages in comparison with alternative traditional methods. Acta Medica Medianae 2012;51(2):34-38.

      Key words: human cell lines, stem cells cultivation, HEK293, transfection, hSERT