Microscopic image of a liver tissue seed grown in a mouse (hepatocytes in green, blood vessels in magenta)CHELSEA FORTIN, KELLY STEVENS, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE, SANGEETA BHATIA, MIT, BOSTONEngineering human livers is a lofty goal. Human liver cells, hepatocytes, are particularly difficult to grow in the laboratory as they lose liver functions quickly in a dish. Now, in a study published today (July 19) in Science Translational Medicine, researchers show that a “seed” of human hepatocytes and supporting cells assembled and patterned within a scaffold can grow out to 50 times its original size when implanted into mice.
These engineered livers, which begin to resemble the natural structure of the organ, offer an approach to study organ development and as a potential strategy for organ engineering.
“What blew my mind is that when we implant these tissues into a mouse with liver injury, the tissue seeds just blossom,” says study author Kelly Stevens, who conducted the experiments as a postdoc in Sangeeta Bhatia’s lab at MIT and now runs her own bioengineering lab at the University of Washington. “Nature takes over and self-assembles a structure that looks like a human liver and has many liver-associated functions.”
“This is a very exciting approach and another demonstration that we can build a basic liver unit using three basic cell types,” says Tammy Chang, an assistant ...
