title: Hepassocin is required for hepatic outgrowth during zebrafish hepatogenesis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Hepassocin (HPS) is a hepatotrophic growth factor that specifically stimulates hepatocyte proliferation and promotes liver regeneration after liver damage. In this paper, zebrafish were used to investigate the role of HPS in liver development.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During zebrafish development, HPS expression is enriched in liver throughout hepatogenesis. Knockdown of HPS using its specific morpholino leads to a smaller liver phenotype. Further results showed that the HPS knockdown has no effect on the expression of the early endoderm marker gata6 and early hepatic marker hhex. In addition, results showed that the smaller-liver phenotype in HPS morphants was caused by suppression of cell proliferation, not induction of cell apoptosis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Current findings indicated that HPS is essential to the later stages of development in vertebrate liver organogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Tianjin University, Department of Pharmaceutical Engineering, Tianjin 300072, China; Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Beijing Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Beijing 100850, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China; State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Beijing 100850, China.
authors.forename: Rong-Hua
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China; State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Beijing 100850, China.
authors.forename: Yi-Qun
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Zhan
authors.affiliation: Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China; State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Beijing 100850, China.
authors.forename: Miao
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China; State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Beijing 100850, China.
authors.forename: Chang-Hui
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China; State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Beijing 100850, China.
authors.forename: Chang-Yan
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China; State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Beijing 100850, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Hui
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Tianjin University, Department of Pharmaceutical Engineering, Tianjin 300072, China.
authors.forename: Zhi-Qiang
authors.initials: ZQ
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: Tianjin University, Department of Pharmaceutical Engineering, Tianjin 300072, China; Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China; State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Beijing 100850, China. Electronic address: xiaomingyang@sina.com.
authors.forename: Xiao-Ming
authors.initials: XM
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D055785:Gene Knockdown Techniques; D022781:Hepatocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D036341:Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D008099:Liver / Q000196:embryology* / Q000378:metabolism; D060172:Morpholinos / Q000235:genetics; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000196:embryology* / Q000235:genetics; D029961:Zebrafish Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D036341:Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins; D060172:Morpholinos; D029961:Zebrafish Proteins; C000600970:si:ch211-287a12.9 protein, zebrafish
keywords: HPS; Hepatocyte proliferation; Liver development; Zebrafish