hepatic cells

[University of Washington Department of Bioengineering] University of Washington bioengineer Kelly Stevens, whose research focuses on mapping human organs and engineering artificial human tissues, has received an Allen Distinguished Investigator Award to support her work to map and understand how human livers develop.

[Cell Death Discovery] To improve the effectiveness of naïve hair follicle-derived-MSC (HF-MSC) treatments on liver cirrhosis (LC), the authors used bioinformatic tools to identify an exogenous gene targeting hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) among the differentially expressed genes in LC to modify HF-MSCs.

[Developmental Cell] Researchers observed unexpectedly high levels of hepatocyte heterogeneity in the developing liver and the progressive construction of the zonated metabolic functions from pericentral to periportal hepatocytes, which was orchestrated with the development of sinusoid endothelial, stellate, and Kupffer cells.

[Cell Reports] To determine the role of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) in myofibroblastic activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), researchers disrupted PD-L1 of HSCs by shRNA or anti-PD-L1 antibody.

[Reproductive Sciences] Scientists hypothesized that women diagnosed with preeclampsia and/or fetal growth restriction have elevated circulating endocan concentrations in direct relationship with severity of clinical manifestations.

[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America] In vitro knockdown of either cullin 1 or cullin 3, but not other cullin members, attenuated insulin-induced insulin receptor substrate protein degradation and enhanced cellular insulin signaling activation.