PURPOSE: Whole liver transplantation, an effective therapy for many inherited and acquired hepatic disorders, has limitations including donor shortage and fatal surgical complications. Hepatocyte transplantation, which is simpler and less expensive than
whole liver transplantation, allows the use of living related donors, permits the use of a single donor organ for multiple recipients, and makes possible the cryopreservation of hepatocytes for future use. However, choosing a proper scaffold for
hepatocyte transplantation hampers wide use of hepatocyte transplantation. We performed hepatocyte transplantation using fibrin gel, as a cell transplantation scaffold and evaluated their effectiveness. METHODS: Female, five week old FVB mice, were
prepared for donors, and two male, five week old nude mice, were used as recipients. Liver cells were isolated from FVB donors. The cell viability exceeded 95% as assessed by the trypan blue exclusion method. For three nude mice, 5×10(6) cells
resuspended in 500 micro l of fibrinogen were mixed with 500 micro l thrombin, and were injected into the peritoneal cavity of each mouse. One nude mouse was transplanted with 5×10(6) cells resuspended in 500 micro l medium, which served as a negative
control. Specimens were retrieved at one week, and histological and immunohistochemical analyses were performed. RESULTS: In the negative control, all transplanted hepatocytes disappeared at one week. In mice transplanted both fibrin gel and
hepatocytes, conglomerates containing hepatocytes were observed on the intestinal mesentery. The hepatocytes were identified by H & E staining and immunohistochemistry using anti-hepatocyte antibody. Functional activity was evaluated with PAS staining.
CONCLUSION: In this preliminary study, stable hepatocyte engraftment was achieved in hepatocyte transplantation with fibrin gel, but not in hepatocyte transplantation without scaffold. More studies on comparison between fibrin gel and injectable
scaffolds would be necessary. Improvement on both initial vascularization and proliferation of transplanted hepatocytes is a target of our future work.
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