title: Transplantation of amniotic epithelial cells into fetal rat liver by in utero manipulation.
abstract: It has been hoped that amniotic epithelial cells would be a gene carrier to neural and hepatic tissue, because of 1) the presence of neural and hepatic stem-like cells, 2) the ability to cryopreserve them, 3) long-term survival in the transplanted site, and 4) few ethical problems concerning procurement. But transplantation of a sufficient number of cells to adult tissue needs large-scale cell supply and may lead to vascular embolism. We attempted transplantation of amniotic epithelial cells into fetal liver, because 1) the fetal liver is at the proliferative stage, 2) the number of cells required is small, and 3) the fetal stage is advantageous for the induction of immunological tolerance. Amniotic epithelial cells from day 18.5-20.5 fetuses were transfected with adenoviral AdlacZ and harvested to inject into fetal rat liver of the syngeneic strain (day 18.5-20.5). The efficacy of cell transplantation into the liver increased in the order: intraplacental < intraumbilical vein < intrahepatic route. LacZ-transfected amniotic cells (1-8 x 10(5) cells), hepatocytes (5 x 10(5) cells), or AdlacZ vector solution (1.7 x 10(7) pfu) were injected through the uterine membrane into the liver. Transplanted cells formed a cellular mass and survived for up to 14 days after birth, whereas lacZ-transfected cells were rapidly decreased after the injection of AdlacZ vector or rat hepatocytes as a gene carrier so that the use of amniotic epithelial cells as a gene carrier will result in long-term expression of exogenous genes in the liver.
authors.affiliation: National Research Institute for Child Health and Development, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Nanae
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.forename: Shin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Enosawa
authors.forename: Tasuku
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mitani
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Seiichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Amemiya
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Amano
authors.forename: Norio
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sakuragawa
mesh_terms: D000256:Adenoviridae / Q000235:genetics; D000650:Amnion / Q000166:cytology*; D000818:Animals; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004333:Drug Administration Routes; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000637:transplantation*; D004848:Epithelium / Q000196:embryology; D005333:Fetus / Q000601:surgery*; D005822:Genetic Vectors; D008099:Liver / Q000196:embryology / Q000601:surgery*; D051381:Rats; D011917:Rats, Inbred Lew; D014162:Transfection / Q000379:methods