Transdifferentiation Of Recipient-derived HSCs In Small-for-size Transplanted Liver In Rats

Objective Liver regeneration after the loss of hepatic tissue is one of the fundamental features of liver respones to injury. Recognized as a phenomenon from mythological times, it is now clearly defined as an orchestrated response induced by specific external stimuli. Since the resected liver may powerfully regenerate and precisely restore the liver mass which is fixedly proportional to body weight, partial liver transplantation have been successfully carried out so as to make up for the relative scarcity of donor organs. Moreover, it is expected that the small for size liver transplantation could become a regular operation pattern in the context of clinical liver transplantation in the near future. Besides the mature hepatocytes, it has been shown that some progenitor cells or stem cells are capable of regenerating hepaticytes in response to liver mass loss. These cells are often referred to as either "oval cells", which are intrahepatic, or as "bone marrow origin stem cells", which are extrahepatic". Although bone-marrow-derived stem cells have been shown to engraft and repopulate nonhematopoitic tissues during injury and repair in some animal models, there is no study performed in partial liver transplantation in animal to evaluate the possibility of stem cell engraftment in liver-transplanted tissues. This study was designed to investigate the frequency of the transdifferentiation into hepatocytes of recipient-originated hematopoitic stem cell (HSC) in different small for size liver transplantations in rats and evaluate some factors influencing the recipient-derived cell...