(Mainichi Japan) Researchers successfully culture liver stem cells outside the body for the first time

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(Mainichi Japan) Researchers successfully culture liver stem cells outside the body for the first time

A research team at the National Cancer Center is the world's first to successfully stabilize and culture liver stem cells outside the body.It is hoped that the researchers' technique can be applied in the future to help test the toxicity of new drugs. The research team, led by section head Tetsuya Ishikawa, will announce their findings at a research meeting in June.Liver stem cells taken from adults, even if cultured, normally will barely multiply at all outside of the body. There also have been no cases of stable, multiplying liver stem cell cultures created from either embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells.According to Ishikawa, the team succeeded by introducing three types of genes via viruses into skin cells, bought on the market, and stomach cells, gathered from Japanese donors. After three or four weeks, the team confirmed the activity of a gene in the culture that produces a protein made

by stem cells and livers. The team was able to stably culture the cells for a period of about 200 days. Ishikawa said the team even succeeded in freezing the cells, and then later thawing them and resuming cultivation.The liver performs many functions, including eliminating toxins that are introduced to the body. If liver cells could be used during development of new drugs to check whether livers can break the drugs down or not, side effects could be more easily detected before clinical testing, and drug development costs and time could be greatly reduced. Drug developers could also infect liver cells with Type-B or C hepatitis and then use the infected cells for testing the effectiveness of new hepatitis drugs; the liver cells are expected to help in the development of such antiviral drugs and anti-cholesterol drugs.

Source

http://Hepatitis Cnewdrugs.blogspot.com/2010/05/mainichi-japan-researchers-successfully.html