The objective of this research was to determine whether dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids suppress hepatic fatty acid synthase (FAS) mRNA levels by altering FAS gene transcription. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were meal-fed for 10 d a high glucose diet supplemented with 20% digestible energy as menhaden oil or tripalmitin. The transcription rate for FAS was determined by nuclear run-on analysis in hepatic nuclei isolated from rats 2 h postmeal. The values for transcription rates of FAS and S14 (a putative lipogenic protein) in rats fed menhaden oil were only 6 and 21%, respectively, of the rates in rats fed the tripalmitin diet (p less than 0.02). Gene transcription for beta-actin and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase did not differ between treatments. The reduction in hepatic FAS mRNA levels caused by dietary polyunsaturated fats appears to be caused primarily by an inhibition of FAS transcription. The control of transcription by polyunsaturated fats appears not to be mediated by cAMP because the transcription rate for phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (whose gene is very sensitive to cAMP stimulation) was unaffected by the source of dietary fat.

Orthotopic liver transplantation remains the only curative treatment for many end-stage liver diseases, yet the number of patients receiving liver transplants remains limited by the number of organs available for transplant. There is a need for alternative therapies for liver diseases. The transplantation of isolated hepatocytes (liver cells) has been used as an experimental therapy for liver disease in a limited number of cases. Recently, the 100 th case of hepatocyte transplantation was reported. This review discusses the history of the hepatocyte transplant field, the major discoveries that supported and enabled the first hepatocyte transplants, and reviews the cases and outcomes of the first 100 clinical transplants. Some of the problems that limit the application or efficacy of hepatocyte transplantation are discussed, as are possible solutions to these problems. In conclusion, hepatocyte transplants have proven effective particularly in cases of metabolic liver disease where reversal or amelioration of the characteristic symptoms of the disease is easily quantified. However, no patients have been completely corrected of a metabolic liver disease for a significant amount of time by hepatocyte transplantation alone. It is likely that future developments in new sources of cells for transplantation will be required before this cellular therapy can be fully implemented and available for large numbers of patients.

Three dietary studies using male Sprague-Dawley rats conditioned to meal-eat a high glucose, fat-free diet and one in vitro study with isolated rat hepatocytes were designed to examine the hypothesis that polyunsaturated fats (i.e., safflower oil or linoleate) are more potent acute inhibitors of liver fatty acid synthesis than are saturated fats (i.e., beef tallow or palmitate). Fat in the first in vivo study was administered via intubation (1500 mg/rat) whereas in the second and third in vivo studies fat was added to the meal in amounts of 50, 100, 250 or 500 mg/g fat-free diet. When the rats were in a postprandial condition, significant suppression of hepatic lipogenesis required the meal to contain 38% of its energy as fat (i.e., 250 mg/g fat-free diet). At this level of fat, safflower oil was more inhibitory than beef tallow (p less than 0.05). The inhibition constant (Ki) for palmitate inhibition of fatty acid synthesis by isolated hepatocytes was fourfold greater than linoleate's Ki (fatty acid/albumin ratio of 1.4/1). When fat constituted 50% of the ingested energy, beef tallow was equivalent to safflower oil as an inhibitor of lipogenesis. Although a single meal containing 50 mg safflower oil/g fat-free diet did not decrease fatty acid synthesis, it effectively delayed the induction of lipogenesis during the first 30 min of the adaptive decrease in lipogenic enzymes attributed to polyunsaturated fats extends to short-term regulatory mechanisms.

Embryonic stem (ES) cells offer unprecedented opportunities for in vitro drug discovery and safety assessment of compounds. Cardiomyocytes derived from ES cells enable development of predictive cardiotoxicity models to increase the safety of novel drugs. Heterogeneity of differentiated ES cells limits the development of reliable in vitro models for compound screening. We report an innovative and robust approach to isolate ES-derived cardiomyocytes using laser microdissection and pressure catapulting (LMPC). LMPC cells were readily applied onto 96-well format in vitro pharmacology assays. The expression of developmental and functional cardiac markers, Nkx 2.5, MLC2V, GATA-4, Connexin 43, Connexin 45, Serca-2a, cardiac alpha actin, and phospholamban, among others, was confirmed in LMPC ES-derived cardiomyocytes. Functional assays exhibited cardiac-like response to increased extracellular calcium (5.4 mM extracellular Ca2+) and L-type calcium channel antagonist (1 microM nifedipine). In conclusion, laser microdissection and pressure catapulting is a robust technology to isolate homogeneous ES-derived cell types from heterogeneous populations applicable to assay development.

Liver disease is a major global health concern. Liver cirrhosis is one of the leading causes of death in the world and currently the only therapeutic option for end-stage liver disease (e.g., acute liver failure, cirrhosis, chronic hepatitis, cholestatic diseases, metabolic diseases, and malignant neoplasms) is orthotropic liver transplantation. Transplantation of hepatocytes has been proposed and used as an alternative to whole organ transplant to stabilize and prolong the lives of patients in some clinical cases. Although these experimental therapies have demonstrated promising and beneficial results, their routine use remains a challenge due to the shortage of donor livers available for cell isolation, variable quality of those tissues, the potential need for lifelong immunosuppression in the transplant recipient, and high costs. Therefore, new therapeutic strategies and more reliable clinical treatments are urgently needed. Recent and continuous technological advances in the development of stem cells suggest they may be beneficial in this respect. In this review, we summarize the history of stem cell and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology in the context of hepatic differentiation and discuss the potential applications the technology may offer for human liver disease modeling and treatment. This includes developing safer drugs and cell-based therapies to improve the outcomes of patients with currently incurable health illnesses. We also review promising advances in other disease areas to highlight how the stem cell technology could be applied to liver diseases in the future.

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Hepatocyte transplantation has been used to treat liver disease. The availability of cells for these procedures is quite limited. Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) may be a useful source of hepatocytes for basic research and transplantation if efficient and effective differentiation protocols were developed and problems with tumorigenicity could be overcome. Recent evidence suggests that the cell of origin may affect hiPSC differentiation. Thus, hiPSCs generated from hepatocytes may differentiate back to hepatocytes more efficiently than hiPSCs from other cell types. We examined the efficiency of reprogramming adult and fetal human hepatocytes. The present studies report the generation of 40 hiPSC lines from primary human hepatocytes under feeder-free conditions. Of these, 37 hiPSC lines were generated from fetal hepatocytes, 2 hiPSC lines from normal hepatocytes and 1 hiPSC line from hepatocytes of a patient with Crigler-Najjar Syndrome, Type-1. All lines were confirmed reprogrammed and expressed markers of pluripotency by gene expression, flow cytometry, immunocytochemistry, and teratoma formation. Fetal hepatocytes were reprogrammed at a frequency over 50-fold higher than adult hepatocytes. Adult hepatocytes were only reprogrammed with 6 factors, while fetal hepatocytes could be reprogrammed with 3 (OCT4, SOX2, NANOG) or 4 factors (OCT4, SOX2, NANOG, LIN28 or OCT4, SOX2, KLF4, C-MYC). The increased reprogramming efficiency of fetal cells was not due to increased transduction efficiency or vector toxicity. These studies confirm that hiPSCs can be generated from adult and fetal hepatocytes including those with genetic diseases. Fetal hepatocytes reprogram much more efficiently than adult, although both could serve as useful sources of hiPSC-derived hepatocytes for basic research or transplantation.

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