肠干细胞向肝脏干细胞转化及向诱导多功能干细胞转化的研究

The liver is a pivotal organ and Liver diseases are important causes of death worldwide. Liver transplantation or primary human hepatocyte (PHH) transplantation is currently the only curative treatment for these diseases at the end stages. However, the demand for liver organs and functional hepatocytes far exceeds the supply of cadaveric livers and liver tissues from living donors. The intestine contains large number stem cells, and the intestine stem cells have been well-studied for isolation and culture. Our study focuses on how to transform intestine stem cells to liver stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), which would provide new resource for hepatocyte and liver tissue for liver diseases therapy. More importantly, our study show the transformation possibility between different tissue stem cells and the advantage of iPSC derived from tissue stem cells. Our study will help people to understand deeply the plasticity of tissue stem cells.

肝脏是人体重要的器官，肝脏疾病在世界范围内是致死的重要原因。目前，肝移植或原代肝细胞移植是治疗这些肝脏疾病晚期的唯一有效手段。然而，无论是健康肝脏器官还是有功能的肝脏细胞目前都主要来源于捐献者，供远远小于需。肠干细胞数量巨大且分离培养方法成熟，我们致力于把肠干细胞转变为肝脏干细胞和诱导多功能干细胞，为肝脏细胞或肝脏组织提供新的来源，为肝脏疾病的治疗提供新的保障。更重要的是，我们的研究将拓展组织干细胞之间相互转化及组织干细胞向诱导多功能干细胞转化的新领域，加深人们对组织干细胞可塑性的理解和应用。