干细胞治疗肝脏疾病的研究进展

Research Progress of Stem Cell Therapy for Liver Diseases

肝移植的巨大需求与可用供肝数量不匹配是长期存在的矛盾,急性或慢性肝功能衰竭的患者各种替代治疗不断派生。对干细胞生物学及肝脏修复过程的研究进展,使得干细胞成为再生医学中治疗肝脏疾病的新热点。目前研究中,肝再生的细胞来源已经囊括多种类型细胞,如成人肝干细胞和胎肝干细胞、肝内干细胞群、成人骨髓来源的造血干细胞、内皮祖细胞、间充质干细胞、胚胎干细胞和诱导多能干细胞。这些高度不同的细胞,可以作为细胞悬液使用,或者与生物材料组合形成可植入的肝组织构建体,为肝再生的研究带来了新的希望。然而,在干细胞全面广泛地应用于临床前,细胞治疗肝脏疾病仍有很多关键障碍需要克服。本文总结了以干细胞为基础治疗肝脏疾病领域的最新技术,以及现有的挑战,提出了将来研究的新方向。

There is a big contradiction between the huge demand for liver transplantation and the num- ber of available donors, more alternative strategies are needed for treating acute or chronic liver failure. In recent years, a great deal of researches on stem cell biology and liver repair has made stem cell a new direction in the use of cell therapy for liver disease in regenerative medicine. The cellular sources of liver regeneration have included various types of cells, such as adult liver stem cells and fetal liver stem cells, intrahepatic stem cell populations, adult bone marrow derived hematopoietic stem cells, endothelial progenitor cells, mesenchymal stem cells, embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. These highly different cells can be used as cell suspen- sions or, in combination with biomaterials as implantable liver tissue constructs that provide great hope for liver regeneration research. However, there are still many key barriers to overcome be- fore stem cell therapy being widely used in clinical practice. In this review, we summarize the lat-est techniques for stem cell-based treatment of liver disease, as well as the existing challenges, and propose new directions for future research.