title: Generation of functional hepatic cells from pluripotent stem cells.
abstract: Liver diseases affect millions of people worldwide, especially in developing country. According to the American Liver Foundation, nearly 1 in every 10 Americans suffers from some form of liver disease. Even though, the liver has great ability to self-repair, in end-stage liver diseases including fibrosis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer induced by viral hepatitis and drugs, the liver regenerative capacity is exhausted. The only successful treatment for chronic liver failure is the whole liver transplantation. More recently, some clinical trials using hepatocyte transplantation have shown some clinical improvement for metabolic liver diseases and acute liver failure. However, the shortage of donor livers remains a life-threatening challenge in liver disease patients. To overcome the scarcity of donor livers, hepatocytes generated from embryonic stem cell or induced pluripotent stem cell differentiation cultures could provide an unlimited supply of such cells for transplantation. This review provides an updated summary of hepatic differentiation protocols published so far, with a characterization of the hepatic cells generatedin vitroand their ability to regenerate damaged liversin vivofollowing transplantation in pre-clinical liver deficient mouse models.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Regenerative Biology, Black Family Stem Cell Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Songyan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Regenerative Biology, Black Family Stem Cell Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Alice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bourdon
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Regenerative Biology, Black Family Stem Cell Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Wissam
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hamou
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Regenerative Biology, Black Family Stem Cell Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Noelle
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dziedzic
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Regenerative Biology, Black Family Stem Cell Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Orit
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Goldman
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Regenerative Biology, Black Family Stem Cell Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Valerie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gouon-Evans