Induction of hepatic differentiation in embryonic stem cells by co-culture with embryonic cardiac mesoderm

Hepatic precursors derived from murine embryonic stem cells contribute to regeneration of injured liver

“…10 The in vitro approaches involve the formation of embryoid bodies (EBs) to re-create the inductive microenvironment required for liver organogenesis 11,12 or treatment with specific growth factors and cytokines critical for hepatocyte differentiation such as hepatocyte growth factor, fibroblast growth factor, and oncostatin. 1,13 Also, the introduction of genes promoting endodermal differentiation into ES cells, 14 modification of culture microenvironment by supplementation with extracellular matrix proteins or coculture with other cell types, 15,16 is used to direct ES cells toward a hepatocytic lineage. Nevertheless, these strategies generally have been inefficient, producing small numbers of hepatocyte precursors within heterogeneous cell populations.…”

Correction of factor IX deficiency in mice by embryonic stem cells differentiated in vitro

“…We have previously demonstrated that murine ES cells removed from feeders can rapidly respond to in vitro inductive signals from chick cardiac mesoderm, resulting in differentiation into cells with a putative endodermal phenotype (8), thereby mimicking the transcriptional regulation for endodermal competence found in development (9)(10)(11)(12)(13). In our current experiments, we removed ES cells from their feeder layer and stimulated them with acidic FGF (100 g͞ml) for 7 days.…”

Detection and Characterization of Hepatic Engraftment of Embryonic Stem Derived Cells by Fluorescent Stereomicroscopy

“…The murine ES cells, A129Bk4 (elf), express the enhanced GFP fused to a nuclear targeting tag, driven by the b-actin promoter [13]. ES cells were propagated over fibroblast feeder layers and differentiated in collagen plates in the presence of 100 ng/ml of aFGF as described previously [19].…”

“…Although the hepatic progenitor appeared to be a good candidate due to its stem cell characteristics, it has been proven to be difficult to isolate [7]. As an alternative, the use of embryonic stem (ES) cell derivatives is particularly attractive, because of their ability to be expanded in culture, their plasticity [10][11][12] and the subsequent potential to undergo directed differentiation under appropriate in vitro conditions [13,14]. An additional theoretical advantage of ES cells is their expected immune privilege [15].…”