BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

Self-contained tissue factories

October 18, 2012 7:00 AM UTC

Cell therapy for liver disease typically involves delivery of hepatocytes to the liver intraportal vein, which carries a risk of hemorrhage, elevated portal pressure and portal vein thrombosis. Now, a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine team thinks it has found a better delivery route-the lymph nodes. The team has mouse data demonstrating that transplantation of cells into lymph nodes led to generation of ectopic tissue that exhibited liver function,1 and the group is testing the approach in pig models of liver failure.

The Pittsburgh team previously showed that intraperitoneal injection of hepatocytes rescued mice from liver failure if the transplanted cells migrated to and colonized nearby lymph nodes.2 The result made sense, as the lymph nodes are highly vascularized, provide direct access to essential nutrients and growth factors found in the blood, and contain cells that secrete chemokines that enhance cell recruitment and can sustain growth of diverse tissue types...