Cell Transplant：肝细胞移植后有“新”肝脏产生

近日，日本的研究人员发现肝脏组织的主要组成--肝细胞参与某些蛋白质的合成和储存，在给小鼠移植分离后的肝细胞时，肝细胞可以创建出一个新肝脏系统。他们的研究发表在最近一期​​ 的Cell Transplantation杂志上。

所谓肝移植手术，是指通过手术植入一个健康的肝脏到患者体内，使终末期肝病患者肝功能得到良好恢复的一种外科治疗手段。使用论文中新的方法和措施评估8周后小鼠肝移植情况，研究人员证实肝脏有特异性蛋白的产生、肝脏系统功能也恢复正常，通过分析小鼠肝脏的化学物质吸收和随后的代谢活动，评估肝脏的再生增长情况。

研究人员说：肝细胞的再生能力扩大了其潜在的临床应用价值，也许未来这项新发现可以用来发展肝移植或开发出其他以肝细胞为基础的疗法。

doi:10.3727/096368911X605330
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Liver Tissue Engineering Utilizing Hepatocytes Propagated in Mouse Livers In Vivo

Ohashi, Kazuo; Tatsumi, Kohei; Tateno, Chise; Kataoka, Miho; Utoh, Rie; Yoshizato, Katsutoshi; Okano, Teruo

Recent advances in tissue engineering technologies have highlighted the ability to create functional liver systems using isolated hepatocytes in vivo. Considering the serious shortage of donor livers that can be used for hepatocyte isolation, it has remained imperative to establish a hepatocyte propagation protocol to provide highly efficient cell recovery allowing for subsequent tissue engineering procedures. Donor primary hepatocytes were isolated from human α-1 antitrypsin (hA1AT) transgenic mice and were transplanted into the recipient liver of urokinase-type plasminogen activator-severe combined immunodeficiency (uPA/SCID) mice. Transplanted donor hepatocytes actively proliferated within the recipient liver of the uPA/SCID mice. At week 8 or later, full repopulation of the uPA/SCID livers with the transplanted hA1AT hepatocytes were confirmed by blood examination and histological assessment. Proliferated hA1AT hepatocytes were recovered from the recipient uPA/SCID mice, and we generated hepatocyte sheets using these recovered hepatocytes for subsequent transplantation into the subcutaneous space of mice. Stable persistency of the subcutaneously engineered liver tissues was confirmed for up to 90 days, which was the length of our present study. These new data demonstrate the feasibility in propagating murine hepatocytes prior to the development of hepatic cells and bioengineered liver systems. The ability to regenerate and expand hepatocytes has potential clinical value whereby procurement of small amounts of tissue could be expanded to sufficient quantities prior to their use in hepatocyte transplantation or other hepatocyte-based therapies.