Effect of Microenvironment on Differentiation of Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells into Hepatocytes In Vitro and In Vivo
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Yabin Qin; Honghai Wu; Yanning Hou; Yang Hong; Jianfang Liu; Xiaolei Han; Xin Ma; Gai Xue; Yu-Qin Hu
- Source
- BioMed Research International, Vol 2016 (2016)
BioMed Research International
- Subject
- 0301 basic medicine
Pathology
medicine.medical_specialty
Article Subject
Cellular differentiation
Cell
lcsh:Medicine
Cord Blood Stem Cell Transplantation
Mesenchymal Stem Cell Transplantation
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Umbilical Cord
Cell therapy
03 medical and health sciences
In vivo
medicine
Animals
Humans
Carbon Tetrachloride
General Immunology and Microbiology
business.industry
Mesenchymal stem cell
lcsh:R
Cell Differentiation
Mesenchymal Stem Cells
General Medicine
In vitro
Rats
Transplantation
030104 developmental biology
medicine.anatomical_structure
Liver
Cancer research
Hepatocytes
Chemical and Drug Induced Liver Injury
business
Biomarkers
Research Article
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2314-6141
2314-6133
Human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hUCMSCs) are considered to be an ideal cell source for cell therapy of many diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of the microenvironment to the hepatic differentiation potential of hUCMSCsin vitroandin vivoand to explore their therapeutic use in acute liver injury in rats. We established a new model to simulate the liver tissue microenvironmentin vivousing liver homogenate supernatant (LHS)in vitro. This induced environment could drive hUCMSCs to differentiate into hepatocyte-like cells within 7 days. The differentiated cells expressed hepatocyte-specific markers and demonstrated hepatocellular functions. We also injected hUCMSCs into rats with CCl4-induced acute hepatic injury. The hUCMSCs were detected in the livers of recipient rats and expressed the human hepatocyte-specific markers, suggesting that hUCMSCs could differentiate into hepatocyte-like cellsin vivoin the liver tissue microenvironment. Levels of biochemistry markers improved significantly after transplantation of hUCMSCs compared with the nontransplantation group (P<0.05). In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the liver tissue microenvironment may contribute to the differentiation of hUCMSCs into hepatocytes bothin vitroandin vivo.