PHARMACOLOGICAL IN VITRO MODELS IN PRE-CLINICAL DRUG TESTING - EXAMPLE OF hSERT TRANSFECTED HUMAN EMBRYONIC KIDNEY CELLS

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.