Usability of Polydimethylsiloxane-Based Microfluidic Devices in Pharmaceutical Research Using Human Hepatocytes.

A liver-on-a-chip (liver-chip) is a microfluidic device carrying liver cells such as human hepatocytes. It is used to reproduce a part of liver function. Many microfluidic devices are composed of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), which is a type of silicone elastomer.

Modeling SARS-CoV-2 infection and its individual differences with ACE2-expressing human iPS cells.

Genetic differences are a primary reason for differences in the susceptibility and severity of COVID-19. As induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells maintain the genetic information of the donor, they can be used to model individual differences in SARS-CoV-2 infection . We found that human iPS cells expressing the SARS-CoV-2 receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) (ACE2-iPS cells) can be infected w SARS-CoV-2.

Comparison of commercially available media for hepatic differentiation and hepatocyte maintenance.

Human hepatocytes are essential materials in pharmaceutical researches. Not only primary human hepatocytes (PHH) but also human iPS cell-derived hepatocyte-like cells (human iPS-HLCs) are expected to be applied as materials for pharmaceutical researches. To date, several culture media have been developed for culturing human hepatocytes.

Generation of safe and therapeutically effective human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived hepatocyte-like cells for regenerative medicine.

Hepatocyte-like cells (HLCs) differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are expected to be applied for regenerative medicine. In this study, we attempted to generate safe and therapeutically effective human iPS-HLCs for hepatocyte transplantation. First, human iPS-HLCs were generated from a human leukocyte antigen-homozygous donor on the assumption that the allogenic transplantation might be carried out.

HHEX promotes hepatic-lineage specification through the negative regulation of eomesodermin.

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) could provide a major window into human developmental biology, because the differentiation methods from hESCs mimic human embryogenesis. We previously reported that the overexpression of hematopoietically expressed homeobox (HHEX) in the hESC-derived definitive endoderm (DE) cells markedly promotes hepatic specification. However, it remains unclear how HHEX functions in this process.

Long-term self-renewal of human ES/iPS-derived hepatoblast-like cells on human laminin 111-coated dishes.

The establishment of self-renewing hepatoblast-like cells (HBCs) from human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) would realize a stable supply of hepatocyte-like cells for medical applications. However, the functional characterization of human PSC-derived HBCs was not enough. To purify and expand human PSC-derived HBCs, human PSC-derived HBCs were cultured on dishes coated with various types of human recombinant laminins (LN).