The canonical Wnt (Wnt/β-catenin) signalling pathway is highly conserved and plays a critical role in regulating cellular processes both during development and in adult tissue homeostasis. The Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway is vital for correct body patterning and is involved in fate specification of the gut tube, the primitive precursor of liver. In adults, the Wnt/β-catenin pathway is increasingly recognised as an important regulator of metabolic zonation, homeostatic renewal and regeneration in response to injury throughout the liver. Herein, we review recent developments relating to the key role of the pathway in the patterning and fate specification of the liver, in the directed differentiation of pluripotent stem cells into hepatocytes and in governing proliferation and zonation in the adult liver. We pay particular attention to recent contributions to the controversy surrounding homeostatic renewal and proliferation in response to injury. Furthermore, we discuss how crosstalk between the Wnt/β-catenin and Hedgehog (Hh) and hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) pathways works to maintain liver homeostasis. Advancing our understanding of this pathway will benefit our ability to model disease, screen drugs and generate tissue and organ replacements for regenerative medicine.

Transdifferentiation is a type of cellular reprogramming involving the conversion of one differentiated cell type to another. This remarkable phenomenon holds enormous promise for the field of regenerative medicine. Over the last 20 years techniques used to reprogram cells to alternative identities have advanced dramatically. Cellular identity is determined by the transcriptional profile which comprises the subset of mRNAs, and therefore proteins, being expressed by a cell at a given point in time. A better understanding of the levers governing transcription factor activity benefits our ability to generate therapeutic cell types at will. One well-established example of transdifferentiation is the conversion of hepatocytes to pancreatic β-cells. This cell type conversion potentially represents a novel therapy in T1D treatment. The identification of key master regulator transcription factors (which distinguish one body part from another) during embryonic development has been central in developing transdifferentiation protocols. Pdx1 is one such example of a master regulator. Ectopic expression of vector-delivered transcription factors (particularly the triumvirate of Pdx1, Ngn3 and MafA) induces reprogramming through broad transcriptional remodelling. Increasingly, complimentary cell culture techniques, which recapitulate the developmental microenvironment, are employed to coax cells to adopt new identities by indirectly regulating transcription factor activity via intracellular signalling pathways. Both transcription factor-based reprogramming and directed differentiation approaches ultimately exploit transcription factors to influence cellular identity. Here, we explore the evolution of reprogramming and directed differentiation approaches within the context of hepatocyte to β-cell transdifferentiation focussing on how the introduction of new techniques has improved our ability to generate β-cells.