Accordingly, mechanical loading induced hypertrophy is preserved under rapamyci

However, there is a severe shortage of liver donors, which is the major obstacle for treatment of patients with end stage liver diseases. Consequently, many patients suffering from end stage liver diseases have to be on the waiting list and they die before liver transplantation can be performed. Hepatocytes transplantation ABT-888 構造 is an alternative approach to restore liver function and cure liver congenital metabolic diseases. Nevertheless, human hepatocytes are scarce in number and have a very limited potential of proliferation. Therefore, it is crucial to seek a readily available source of hepatocytes from extra liver tissues andor stem cells that can be cultured and expanded in vitro to treat patients with end stage liver diseases. Hepatic stem cells can differentiate into functional hepatocytes.<br><br> Nevertheless, the number of hepatic stem cells is very few in patients with end stage liver diseases. Embryonic stem cells have been used to differentiate into hepatocytes. However, the availability of human ES cells is rather limited due to the ethic and safety issues. Recently, the induced pluripotent stem cells have been utilized to generate supplier Afatinib functional hepato cytes. Nevertheless, it is cautious to use hepatocytes derived from iPS cells for clinical applications due to their genetic instability and using viral transduction for reprogramming somatic cells to pluripotency, which poses a potential tumor risk that could limit their use in regen erative medicine. Adult tissue stem cells can differentiate into mature cells with specific functions.<br><br> One obvious advantage of using adult tissue stem cells is that there is no ethical issue compared to ES cells, and most import antly, certain adult tissue stem cells have multipotency to differentiate AG-1478 臨床試験 into various kinds of cells for regenerative medicine. Spermatogonial stem cells are a subpopulation of type A spermatogonia in the testis. SSCs were previously regarded as unipotent stem cells since they were thought to differentiate into sperm only. However, this concept has recently been changed. Notably, recent studies have demonstrated that SSCs from both mouse and human testes can de differentiate to become ES like cells that can differentiate into various cell lineages of all three embryonic germ layers, suggesting that SSCs have important implications in regenerative medicine.<br><br> On the other hand, SSCs de differentiate to become pluripotent ES like cells, which may cause tumor since ES like cells can form teratomas after transplantation. Recent study suggests that SSCs transdifferentiate into prostatic, uterine, and skin epithelium in vivo after transplantation. However, it remains unknown whether SSCs have the potential to transdifferentiate into other types of stem cells in vitro. In this study, we propose a novel concept that SSCs can directly transdifferentiate to hepatic stem cells in vitro capable of differentiating into mature hepatocytes, which achieves two significant endpoints. First of all, direct transdifferentiation of primary SSCs to hepatic stem cells without the process of de differentiation to pluripotent ES like cells and embryonic body formation could simplify the reprogramming procedure.