Development of hepatic sinusoidal structure with special reference to the Ito cells

To elucidate sinusoidal cell structure and function under normal conditions and their behavior in diseased settings, an understanding of their developmental aspects is needed. At day 10 of gestation in mice and rats or at 5 weeks of gestation in humans, the hepatic cords grow into the mesenchymal tissue of the septum transversum, and the primitive sinusoidlike structure is simultaneously observed between the liver cell cords. In the margin of the growing liver primordium, mesenchymal cells in the septum transversum are trapped in the subendothelial space. These subendothelial cells are at the early stages of organogenesis and become progenitors of the Ito cells. By days 12-14 of gestation in mice and rats or 8 weeks of gestation in humans, the basic structure of the sinusoids has developed. Embryonic hepatic sinusoids are usually lined by a continuous endothelium without basement membranes, and an incompletely fenestrated sinusoid appears at the middle gestational stage. In the late gestational stages, the Ito cells exhibit myofibroblastlike features in humans, mice, and rats. In association with this event, perisinusoidal reticular networks are gradually intensified. After birth until days 4-5 in mice and rats, the sinusoidal and perisinusoidal structures are almost completely formed, although slight morphological differences from those in adult livers still exist. What happens to sinusoidal endothelial cells and Ito cells in hepatic fibrosis-cirrhosis of the adult may be a deviated or uncontrolled occurrence of what goes on during the fetal period, i.e., a continuous nonfenestrated sinusoidal lining in the early embryonic stage and a myofibroblastlike transformation of Ito cells in late fetal life.