Direct Electromembrane Extraction based Mass Spectrometry: A Tool for Studying Drug Metabolism Properties of Liver Organoids

Abstract

This work introduces a strategy for organoid analysis - direct Electromembrane Extraction based Mass Spectrometry (dEME-MS) – for coupling liver organoids with mass spectrometry (MS). dEME-MS comprises electrophoresis of selected small molecules from a culture chamber across an oil membrane, and to a MS compatible solution. This enables clean micro-extraction of drugs and their metabolites as produced in the liver organoids to capillary liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Applying dEME-MS, proof-of-concept of directly measuring methadone metabolism is demonstrated on adult liver organoids. With 50 liver organoids and 1 μM methadone, methadone metabolism was monitored from 0 to 24 hours (11 time points). All analytes had <0.4 % variance in retention times with >100 measurements. dEME-MS is capable of automated and selective monitoring of drug metabolism in liver organoids, and could serve as a valuable tool for automated drug discovery efforts.