In understanding mechanisms of liver repopulation with transplanted hepatocytes, we studied the consequences of hepatic polyploidization in the two-thirds partial hepatectomy model of liver regeneration. Liver repopulation studies using genetically marked rodent hepatocytes showed that the number of previously transplanted hepatocytes did not increase in the liver with subsequential partial hep...

Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is becoming a growing public health problem along with the increase of metabolic syndrome worldwide. Extracellular nucleotides are known to serve as danger signal by initiating purinergic signaling in many inflammatory disorders, although role progression NASH remains be clarified. Vesicular nucleotide transporter (VNUT) key molecule responsible for vesicula...

Chemically defined serum-free media for rat hepatocytes have been useful in identifying EGFR ligands and HGF/MET signaling as direct mitogenic factors for rat hepatocytes. The absence of such media for mouse hepatocytes has prevented screening for discovery of such mitogens for mouse hepatocytes. We present results obtained by designing such a chemically defined medium for mouse hepatocytes and...

Porcine hepatocytes transplanted during acute liver failure might support metabolic functions until the diseased liver recovers its function. Here, we isolated high numbers of viable pig hepatocytes and evaluated hepatocyte functionality after encapsulation. We further investigated whether coculture and coencapsulation of hepatocytes with human multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) are be...

BACKGROUND AND AIM The interaction between hepatitis C virus (HCV) and innate antiviral defense systems in primary human hepatocytes is not well understood. The objective of this study is to examine how primary human hepatocytes response to HCV infection. METHODS An infectious HCV isolate JFH1 was used to infect isolated primary human hepatocytes. HCV RNA or NS5A protein in the cells was dete...

The liver is an important site of host-microbe interaction. Although hepatocytes have been reported to be responsive to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), the global gene expression changes by LPS and mechanism(s) by which LPS stimulates cultured hepatocytes remain uncertain. Cultures of primary mouse hepatocytes were incubated with LPS to assess its effects on the global gene expression, hepatic transc...

Hepatocytes isolated from rats fed on a chow diet or a low-protein (8% ) diet were used to study the effects of various factors on flux through the branched-chain 2-oxo acid dehydrogenase complex. The activity of this complex was also determined in cell-free extracts ofthe hepatocytes. Hepatocytes isolated from chow-fed rats had greater flux rates (decarboxylation rates of3-methyl-2-oxobutanoat...

BACKGROUND AND AIM Green fluorescent protein (GFP) is a widely used molecular tag to trace transplanted cells in rodent liver injury models. The differing results from various previously reported studies using GFP could be attributed to the immunogenicity of GFP. METHODS Hepatocytes were obtained from GFP-expressing transgenic (Tg) Lewis rats and were transplanted into the livers of wild-type...

BACKGROUND The size of organs and tissues is basically determined by the number and size of their cells. However, little attention has been paid to this fundamental concept. The liver has a remarkable ability to regenerate after surgical resection (partial hepatectomy [PHx]), and hepatocytes account for about 80% of liver weight, so we investigate how the number and size of hepatocytes contribu...

When parenchymal hepatocytes isolated from adult liver are co-cultured with other epithelial cells, the production of various plasma proteins by the hepatocytes is preserved for much longer than in conventional culture. This study examines some of the metabolic interactions between parenchymal hepatocytes and epithelial cells maintained in co-culture. The leakage of lactate dehydrogenase by hep...