Rotation culture with a newly developed holder enables long-term liver slice culture for study of liver fibrosis.

Background/aims: Conventional slice rotation culture has employed fibrin that is produced from fibrinogen by thrombin, to fix tissue slices on a slide glass. However, thrombin transmits various stimuli to cells through the thrombin receptor and affects experimental results. To exclude this disadvantage of thrombin, we developed a new holder and studied long-term liver rotation culture without using thrombin.