In vitro culture at 39 °C during hepatic maturation of human ES cells facilitates hepatocyte-like cell functions.

Hepatocyte-like cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC-HLCs) offer an alternative to primary hepatocytes commonly used for drug screenings and toxicological tests. However, these cells do not have hepatic functions comparable to those of hepatocytes in vivo due to insufficient hepatic differentiation. Here we showed that the hepatic functions of hPSC-HLCs were facilitated by applying physiological liver temperatures during hepatic differentiation.