LAUSR

Cell therapy and tissue engineering (TE) are considered as alternatives therapeutic approaches to organ transplantation. Since cell therapy approaches achieved little success for liver failure treatment, liver TE is considered a more promising alternative. In this study, we produced a liver tissue equivalent (called "LEMS-Patch") via co-culture of human bone marrow stromal cells, human umbilical vein endothelial cells and a hepatoma cell-line, Huh7, within an artificial three-dimensional liver-ECM scaffold. The results showed significant increase in the liver-specific genes expression and hepatic functions, in terms of albumin and fibrinogen secretion, urea production and cytochrome inducibility in the LEMS-Patch compared to controls. In addition, transplanted LEMS-Patch was successfully incorporated into the recipient liver of ALF mice and produced human albumin. Consequently, our data demonstrated that the generated LEMS-Patch could be used as a good platform for functional improvement of hepatic cells in vitro and in vivo. Keywords: Hepatic-Patch, Liver extracellular matrix, Tissue engineering, Regenerative Medicine.