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PMID: 14871234 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Review

Hepatic stem cells: from inside and outside the liver?

Cell proliferation ·Vol. 37 ·No. 1 ·2004-02-00 ·Pages 1-21

Alison MR, Vig P, Russo F, Bigger BW, Amofah E, Themis M, Forbes S

Abstract

The liver is normally proliferatively quiescent, but hepatocyte loss through partial hepatectomy, uncomplicated by virus infection or inflammation, invokes a rapid regenerative response from all cell types in the liver to perfectly restore liver mass. Moreover, hepatocyte transplants in animals have shown that a certain proportion of hepatocytes in foetal and adult liver can clonally expand, suggesting that hepatoblasts/hepatocytes are themselves the functional stem cells of the liver. More severe liver injury can activate a potential stem cell compartment located within the intrahepatic biliary tree, giving rise to cords of bipotential transit amplifying cells (oval cells), that can ultimately differentiate into hepatocytes and biliary epithelial cells. A third population of stem cells with hepatic potential resides in the bone marrow; these haematopoietic stem cells may contribute to the albeit low renewal rate of hepatocytes, but can make a more significant contribution to regeneration under a very strong positive selection pressure. In such instances, cell fusion rather than transdifferentiation appears to be the underlying mechanism by which the haematopoietic genome becomes reprogrammed.

MeSH Terms
Animals Cell Differentiation Hematopoietic Stem Cells/cytology Humans Liver/cytology Stem Cells/cytology
Authors & Affiliations
7 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Alison M R
Department of Histopathology, Imperial College, London, UK. m.alison@imperial.ac.uk
Vig P
Russo F
Bigger B W
Amofah E
Themis M
Forbes S
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Article Info
Journal
Cell proliferation
Abbr.
Cell Prolif
ISSN
0960-7722
DOI
10.1111/j.1365-2184.2004.00297.x
Email
m.alison@imperial.ac.uk
Published
2004-02-00
Pages
1-21
Language
English
Region
England
NLM ID
9105195
PMCID
PMC6495919
Subset
IM
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2184.2004.00297.x PMC Full Text View journal details
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