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Updated: Jul 22, 2026

"Liver-on-a-Chip" Cultures of Primary Hepatocytes and Kupffer Cells for Hepatitis B Virus Infection
Published on: February 19, 2019
Maintenance of hepatocyte functions by coculture with bone marrow stromal cells
Katsuhiro Isoda1, Midori Kojima, Masashi Takeda
1Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University, 1-6 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
Abstract:
Rat hepatocytes and bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) were cocultured with the aim of maintaining differentiated hepatocyte functions. After BMSCs were expanded to a confluent monolayer, freshly isolated hepatocytes were cultured with them, separated by a semipermeable membrane. The BMSCs significantly increased the urea synthesis and albumin secretion activities of the hepatocytes. Conditioned medium prepared from a BMSC monoculture had the same effect. Further study showed that interleukin-6 was involved in the maintenance of urea synthesis and another factor in the maintenance of albumin secretion.
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