1990 Volume 19 Issue 3 Pages 1165-1168
It has been reported that hepatocyte-spheroids (spheroid) formed on a substrate of Liver-derived proteoglycans would be a suitable bioreactor for the hybrid artificial liver because of the easy handling and their differentiated functions maintained. In the present study, we surveyed simple substrates equivalent to proteoglycans as to spheroid forming ability. Polystyrene dishes with a positively charged hydrophilic surface, Primaria, appeared to be the simplest material effective for the spheroid formation. Any polystyrene materials (with positively and negatively charged surfaces, and hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces) that had been coated with bovine serum albumin or 2-hydroxymethyl methacrylate were also effective. Various characteristics reported for the spheroids formed on proteoglycan substrate, as to high albumin producing ability, poor proliferating ability and differentiated morphology, were equivalent to those formed in Primaria dishes. Noticeable difference was that the average diameter of spheroids formed on proteoglycan substrate was slightly smaller than the other. Thus we concluded that polystyrene with positively charged hydrophilic surface was a suitable material for the production of hepatocyte-spheroid in a large scale.
