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Updated: Sep 30, 2026

In Vitro Cultivation Techniques for Modeling Liver Organogenesis, Building Assembloids, and Designing Synthetic Tissues using Human Cell Lines
Published on: April 18, 2025
Regulatory phases of early liver development: paradigms of organogenesis
1Cell and Developmental Biology Program, Fox Chase Cancer Center, 7701 Burholme Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19111, USA. zaret@fccc.edu
Abstract:
Genetic analysis, embryonic tissue explantation and in vivo chromatin studies have together identified the distinct regulatory steps that are necessary for the development of endoderm into a bud of liver tissue and, subsequently, into an organ. In this review, I discuss the acquisition of competence to express liver-specific genes by the endoderm, the control of early hepatic growth, the coordination of hepatic and vascular development and the cell differentiation that is necessary to generate a functioning liver. The regulatory mechanisms that underlie these phases are common to the development of many organ systems and might be recapitulated or disrupted during stem-cell differentiation and adult tissue pathogenesis.
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