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Updated: Jan 25, 2026

"Liver-on-a-Chip" Cultures of Primary Hepatocytes and Kupffer Cells for Hepatitis B Virus Infection
Published on: February 19, 2019
Long-term functional maintenance of primary human hepatocytes in vitro
Chengang Xiang1, Yuanyuan Du1, Gaofan Meng1
1School of Basic Medical Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, Peking University Health Science Center and the MOE Key Laboratory of Cell Proliferation and Differentiation, College of Life Sciences, Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China.
Abstract:
The maintenance of terminally differentiated cells, especially hepatocytes, in vitro has proven challenging. Here we demonstrated the long-term in vitro maintenance of primary human hepatocytes (PHHs) by modulating cell signaling pathways with a combination of five chemicals (5C). 5C-cultured PHHs showed global gene expression profiles and hepatocyte-specific functions resembling those of freshly isolated counterparts. Furthermore, these cells efficiently recapitulated the entire course of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection over 4 weeks with the production of infectious viral particles and formation of HBV covalently closed circular DNA. Our study demonstrates that, with a chemical approach, functional maintenance of PHHs supports long-term HBV infection in vitro, providing an efficient platform for investigating HBV cell biology and antiviral drug screening.
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