title: Growing a whole porcine liver organ ex situ for six hours without red blood cells or hemoglobin.
abstract: Liver transplantation is an effective approach to end-stage liver disease. Shortage of donor liver and increased waiting time for liver transplantation necessitate the development of an organ culture system by which livers can be cultured and maintained ex situ for a prolonged period of time. The aim of this work is to test whether cell culture condition in vitro could be used to culture whole livers ex situ without the use of erythrocytes. Twelve castrated male land race/farm young porcine livers were exposed to 30 min warm ischemia and 30 min cold perfusion. Livers were isolated and connected to an Ex situ liver culture system using a standard culture medium RPMI1640 supplied with 10% of fetal bovine serum and sufficient dissolved oxygen under a normothermic condition for 6 hours. Metabolic biomarkers, bile and urea production, hepatic cell viability and histology analysis of biopsies were examined and newly proliferated hepatic cells labeled by BrdU were analyzed after 6 hours ex situ culture. The results from biochemical assays and histology analysis indicate that livers after the organ culture still maintain the full function.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our data demonstrate that the liver culture system established in this work can be used to culture whole livers ex situ in the absence of erythrocytes.
authors.affiliation: School of Basic Medical Science, Anhui Medical University 81 Meishan Road, Hefei 230032, Anhui, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: School of Basic Medical Science, Anhui Medical University81 Meishan Road, Hefei 230032, Anhui, P. R. China; Department of Infectious Diseases, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical UniversityHefei 230032, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Lingling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: School of Basic Medical Science, Anhui Medical University 81 Meishan Road, Hefei 230032, Anhui, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Hefang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Department of Chirurgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University Hefei 230032, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Congwen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bian
authors.affiliation: Saint James School of Medicine, Saint Vincent and The Grenadines, First Affiliated Hospital, Anhui Medical University Hefei, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Sujin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bao
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Laboratory, First Affiliated Hospital, Anhui Medical University Hefei, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Children's Hospital of Anhui Province 39 Eastern Wangjiang Road, Hefei 230002, Anhui, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yiqi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Du
authors.affiliation: School of Basic Medical Science, Anhui Medical University 81 Meishan Road, Hefei 230032, Anhui, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.affiliation: School of Basic Medical Science, Anhui Medical University 81 Meishan Road, Hefei 230032, Anhui, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Lijuan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Laboratory, First Affiliated Hospital, Anhui Medical University Hefei, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yuanhong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chirurgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University Hefei 230032, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Qiru
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Xiong
authors.affiliation: Medical Engineering, Hefei University of Technology Hefei, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jianjian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: School of Basic Medical Science, Anhui Medical University81 Meishan Road, Hefei 230032, Anhui, P. R. China; Department of Cell Biology, SUNY Downstate Medical Center760 Parkside Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11226, USA.
authors.forename: Lili
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xu
keywords: 3D culture; BrdU histology analysis; BrdU proliferation assay; Ex situ liver culture; organ growing; oxygen carrier free; warm ischemia; without erythrocytes