Hepatocytes directly isolated from liver tissue show a functionality very similar in culture as in vivo. They have become the “gold standard” for metabolism, clearance, hepatoxicity and drug-drug interaction and a lot more. The development of various mouse models have increased the availability of tissue samples over the past two decades.
Isolating hepatocytes from liver tissue samples is either time-consuming, non-standardized, not scalable or accepting all drawbacks of enzymatic digestion. Or all of them together. This is all the more important because it also implies major limitations for a 2D or 3D culture.