Project Details
Abstract
Liver is an important organ for metabolic and detoxify functions. For serious
liver diseases, liver transplantation is the only treatment. However, the availability
of donor liver is limited and many patients died each year. Recent studies revealed
that hepatocyte transplantation during the past decade has provided proof that cell
therapy could be effective. In addition to hepatocytes, stem cells with capabilities of
differentiating into hepatocytes have been used in this study. The experimental
results showed the direct transplantation of stem cells yield limited numbers of stem
cell-derived hepatocytes in recipient animals. Thus, the application of tissue
engineering strategy seems to be promising for the therapeutic approach.
For the establishment of hepatic constructs, the type of seeded cells is important.
Until now, only human hepatoma cell lines, human embryonic cells, and bone
marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells have been tested for their potentials in
hepatic tissue engineering. Recently, we identified placenta-derived stem cells
(PDMCs) from human term placenta. Placenta is a easy accessible, low infection
rate, and young age source. The isolated progenitors are capable of differentiating
into three germ layer cells. Thus make them promising for future application. Our lab
is the first group reported that PDMCs could be converted to hepatocyte-like cells not
only express liver cell-specific markers such as albumin and human
hepatocyte-specific antigen but also showed hepatocyte-specific biological functions.
In this proposal, we aim to study the potential of hepatic tissue engineering
application of PDMCs. The effects of various scaffolds on PDMCs culture will be
evaluated first. Then, the PDMCs in 3-D culture will be induced to differentiate
toward hepatocyte and the induction protocol will be optimized by the application of
bioreactors. Finally, the therapeutic effects of cell constructs will be evaluated in
xenograft animal model.
Project IDs
Project ID:PC10001-0310
External Project ID:NSC98-2314-B182-061-MY3
External Project ID:NSC98-2314-B182-061-MY3
Status | Finished |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 01/08/11 → 31/07/12 |
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