Not only hepatocytes
Scientists have studied a new mechanism of regeneration of liver cells
Scientists from the Center for Regenerative Medicine in Edinburgh (Scotland), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) and the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology for the first time demonstrated the role of cholangiocytes – cells of intrahepatic bile ducts – in the regeneration of liver tissue. The results obtained are useful for regenerative medicine and the fight against liver diseases. The results of the study are published in the journal Nature.
The liver is one of the few organs in the human body capable of regeneration. In case of liver damage as a result of injury or chronic disease, the main liver cells – hepatocytes (they are responsible for all the main liver functions) are able to regenerate due to the division of intact hepatocytes. Stimulation of liver regeneration is an acute problem facing medicine, however, the details of this mechanism and whether other types of liver cells are involved in the formation of new hepatocytes have not yet been clear.
An international group of scientists used mice as a model object, they managed to simulate liver damage characteristic of humans. The experiment was conducted on two independent models, where the ability of hepatocytes to divide was specifically reduced in order to assess the contribution of other liver cells to regeneration. As a result of this work, it was shown that epithelial cells of the bile ducts – cholangiocytes – are involved in the regeneration of hepatocytes. Scientists also suggest that the regeneration potential of hepatocytes derived from cholangiocytes may be higher than that of ordinary hepatocytes.
Yuri Kotelevtsev, Professor at Skoltech, Deputy Director of the Center for Translational Biomedicine (formerly the Center for Functional Genomics) Skoltech:
"A little over a year ago, I met with my colleagues at the University of Edinburgh in order to create joint research projects. He talked about how we at Skoltech, at the Center for Functional Genomics under the leadership of Professor Viktor Kotelyansky, managed to establish the technology of knockdown of liver genes. This technology has been well known for about 7 years, but its application, in vivo, requires a high experimental level and is still available in few academic laboratories. It turned out that the laboratory of Professor Stuart Forbes is working on a problem in which knockdown can quickly and unambiguously confirm the hypotheses of the key role of cholangiocytes in liver regeneration. The contribution of Skoltech together with MIT is that we created and provided for the experiment lipid nanoparticles with siRNA to beta-1-integrin, which blocked the expression of this gene in hepatocytes in mice, and subsequent observations on the phenotype of the resulting model allowed us to identify cholangiocytes as cells involved in liver regeneration. Currently, the Scottish Center for Regenerative Medicine, under the leadership of Professor S. Forbes, is beginning work aimed at isolating and transplanting autologous cholangiocytes to patients with cirrhosis of the liver. We are now continuing our collaboration with the lab. prof. We are testing new target genes, blocking of which can prevent or stabilize the processes associated with fibrosis and subsequent cirrhosis of the liver."
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28.08.2017