Long-term functional maintenance of primary human hepatocytes in vitro

The maintenance of terminally differentiated cells, especially hepatocytes, in vitro has proven challenging. Here we demonstrated the long-term in vitro maintenance of primary human hepatocytes (PHHs) by modulating cell signaling pathways with a combination of five chemicals (5C). 5C-cultured PHHs showed global gene expression profiles and hepatocyte-specific functions resembling those of freshly isolated counterparts. Furthermore, these cells efficiently recapitulated the entire course of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection over 4 weeks with the production of infectious viral particles and formation of HBV covalently closed circular DNA. Our study demonstrates that, with a chemical approach, functional maintenance of PHHs supports long-term HBV infection in vitro, providing an efficient platform for investigating HBV cell biology and antiviral drug screening.

Source: ScienceNOW - April 24, 2019 Category: Science Authors: Xiang, C., Du, Y., Meng, G., Soon Yi, L., Sun, S., Song, N., Zhang, X., Xiao, Y., Wang, J., Yi, Z., Liu, Y., Xie, B., Wu, M., Shu, J., Sun, D., Jia, J., Liang, Z., Sun, D., Huang, Y., Shi, Y., Xu, J., Lu, F., Li, C., Xiang, K., Yuan, Z., Lu, S., Deng, H. Tags: Molecular Biology reports Source Type: news