iPSCs and toxicology :predictive tool for present and future

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) hold great promise for toxicology, being able to provide a nearly limitless number of cells derived from all the three germ layers and overcoming the limitations of the most widely used toxicological models. Indeed, this technology has seen particularly interesting applications in drug screening (even through high-throughput techniques) and mechanistic studies, offering also a powerful tool for personalized toxicological investigations as well as for evaluations on genetic polymorphisms involving xenobiotic metabolism pathways. This chapter aims to provide an insight on the major toxicological applications of iPSCs (i.e., hepatotoxicity, cardiotoxicity, neurotoxicity, nephrotoxicity research, as well as developmental and species-specific toxicological investigations), their advantages and drawbacks, and future perspectives.