为探讨基于细胞的中药安全性评价新方法的有效性，本文对常用的肾小管上皮细胞的特点及其在中药成分体外肾毒性研究中的应用情况进行概述，并对基于细胞的中药肾毒性评价方法的应用前景进行展望。

The nephrotoxicity induced by traditional Chinese medicine(TCM), which is attracting more attention, hinders TCM development and clinical application. To gurantee the safe application of TCM, it is essential to, establish modern safety assessment approaches. During early toxicity screening, in vitro cytotoxicity assays were conducted to explore the cell-based approach for the safety assessment of TCM components. This paper briefly reviews the characteristics of renal tubular epithelial cells and the applications of cell-based approaches to in vitro study concerning the nephrotoxicity of TCM components. Perspectives are also presented regarding the use of renal tubular epithelial cells as an early safety assessment assay in TCM.

北京市科委科技计划项目（Z0004105040311）：先导物和中药的ADMET性质快速集成评价实验平台，负责人：杨秀伟。