Use of a pre-clinical pig model to characterize and modulate immune responses following liver cell transplantation
(C11*)
Subject Area
General and Visceral Surgery
Term
from 2015 to 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 24899777
The current obstacles for hepatocyte transplantation are (1) the lack of sufficient numbers of hepatocytes, (2) the development of an allogeneic immune response with the difficulty to monitor rejection after cellular transplantation and (3) the lack of appropriate preclinical models translating the results obtained in mice into clinical applications. Therefore, the new project C11 has established a pig model of hepatocyte transplantation after major hepatic resection. In contrast to the rodent models in which transferred hepatocytes have to repopulate a toxic microenvironment (e.g. in FAH-/- mice), the hepatic environment after major resection will rather facilitate the engraftment of transferred cells. In addition, the group will address the problem of cell number by employing liver stem cells. They recently established a protocol to dedifferentiate hepatocytes into a stem cell like state from which the cells can be efficiently expanded in vitro.
DFG Programme
Collaborative Research Centres
