| Budget Amount *help |
¥16,740,000 (Direct Cost: ¥15,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,140,000)
Fiscal Year 2007: ¥4,940,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,140,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥3,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,800,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥8,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥8,000,000)
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| Research Abstract |
The aim of this study is to elucidate the mechanisms of the liver regeneration by using the liver epithelial stem-like cells which were cloned from the liver cells obtained from Wistar male rat liver. The liver epithelial stem-like cells explosively proliferated and survived for a long term. The liver epithelial stem-like cells expressed some markers (glycogen, albumin, AFP, ck7/17, PECAM-1, ED2, Desmin, actin) which correspond to each cell included in the liver. Glycogen is a marker of the hepatocyte, albumin, (hepatocyte), AFP (hepatocyte), ck7/17 (epithelial cell of the biliary duct), PECAM-1 (sinusoidal endothelial cell), ED2 (Kupffer cell), Desmin (stellate cell) and actin (pericyte), respectively. The liver epithelial stem-like cells also expressed the receptors of some growth factors such as HGF, FGF and VEGF. The exposure to VEGF and HGF has caused the network formation consisting of thin thread like cord from epithelial-stem-like cells. And the exposure to EGF and FGF induced
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the transformation of the liver epithelial stem-like cells. The results mean that the liver epithelial stem-like cells have a feature corresponding to each cell included in the liver and have the plasticity by reacting the effects of these growth factors.
The immunohistochemical staining study of the hematopoietic stem cell markers for the liver epithelial stem-like cells revealed that these cells had the combination of the markers, c-Met^+-c-Kit^-CD45R^+-CD34^-Thy1^+. The combination included a very important pair (c-Met^+-c-Kit^-) of the stem cell markers which was essential for the stem cells of the fetal liver (Suzuki A, et. al. J Cell Biol. 156: 173-184, 2002).
Our results revealed that the liver epithelial stem-like cells obtained from adult rat livers were one of the somatic stem cells of the liver because of their strong proliferation potency, pluripotency, long-terra survival capacity. Possibility of an important role of the liver epithelial stem-like cells in repairing the impaired tissue of the liver was proposed from the results of our study. Less
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