Bioactivity and toxicity evaluation of nutraceuticals using in vitro cell-based models: A review

Nutraceutical is one of the new concepts appearing in recent years, referring to food products derived from natural sources that benefit human health in preventing and treating diseases, besides providing nutritional value. During the development of these products, it is important to evaluate the toxicity and bioactivity of potential compounds and to study the mechanism of action of these nutraceutical compounds at the cellular and molecular levels. Among the many different experimental models, the in vitro cell-based model has emerged as a model with many advantages for preliminary screening of nutraceuticals activity and toxicity before conducting further studies on in vivo models. This review summarizes some basic techniques commonly used to screen nutraceuticals' toxicity. Recent studies of the bioactivity of nutraceuticals in various areas, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammation, antiobesity, neuroprotection, and gut health improvement, are also reviewed to introduce the application of the cell-based model in nutraceutical bioactivity research. New modern techniques using in vitro cell-based models have been applied in this field, such as highthroughput screening, 3D-cell culture, and organ-on-a-chip are also discussed in this paper.