Liver tissue engineering based on decellularized organ

Abstract

Three-dimensional tissue engineering for regenerative medicine is desired for serious organ diseases. Especially, liver is a central organ for metabolism in our body and is complicated structure. Therefore, liver tissue engineering is one of the most important and difficult themes. However, formation of thick tissue (>1mm) is still impossible, because oxygen consumption rate of hepatocytes is higher than the other organs' cells. Organ-scale scaffold having a template of blood vessel network was obtained by decellularization with detergent. The fineness of the network was the same as original liver, evaluated by 3D-CT. Template of blood vessel network was endothelialized with HUVEC and blood leakage was prevented. On the other hand, decellularized liver was recellularized with hepatocytes. Furthermore, this recellularized liver expressed liver-specific functions of hepatocytes in organ culture, and well metabolized ammonia during blood circulation. In conclusion, decellularized organ is effective scaffold in three dimensional tissue engineering.