Drug-induced toxicity remains one of the leading causes of discontinuation of drug candidate and postmarketing withdrawal. Thus, early identification of the drug candidates with the potential for toxicity is
crucial in the drug development process. With the recent discovery of human induced pluripotent stem
cells (iPSC) and the establishment of the differentiation protocol of human iPSC into the cell types of
interest, the differentiated cells from human iPSC have garnered much attention because of their potential
applicability in toxicity evaluation as well as drug screening, disease modeling and cell therapy. In this
review, we expanded on current information regarding the feasibility of human iPSC-derived cells for the
evaluation of drug-induced toxicity with a focus on human iPSC-derived hepatocyte (iPSC-Hep),
cardiomyocyte (iPSC-CMs) and neurons (iPSC-Neurons). Further, we CSAHi, Consortium for Safety
Assessment using Human iPS Cells, reported our gene expression profiling data with DNA microarray
using commercially available human iPSC-derived cells (iPSC-Hep, iPSC-CMs, iPSC-Neurons), their
relevant human tissues and primary cultured human cells to discuss the future direction of the three types
of human iPSC-derived cells.
