Generation of human hepatic progenitor cells with regenerative and metabolic capacities from primary hepatocytes

  1. Takeshi Katsuda
  2. Juntaro Matsuzaki
  3. Tomoko Yamaguchi
  4. Yasuhiro Yamada
  5. Marta Prieto-Vila
  6. Kazunori Hosaka
  7. Atsuko Takeuchi
  8. Yoshimasa Saito
  9. Takahiro Ochiya  Is a corresponding author
  1. National Cancer Center Research Institute, Japan
  2. Nihon Pharmaceutical University, Japan
  3. Kobe Pharmaceutical University, Japan
  4. Keio University, Japan

Abstract

Hepatocytes are regarded as the only effective cell source for cell transplantation to treat liver diseases; however, their availability is limited due to a donor shortage. Thus, a novel cell source must be developed. We recently reported that mature rodent hepatocytes can be reprogrammed into progenitor-like cells with a repopulative capacity using small molecule inhibitors. Here, we demonstrate that hepatic progenitor cells can be obtained from human infant hepatocytes using the same strategy. These cells, named human chemically induced liver progenitors (hCLiPs), had a significant repopulative capacity in injured mouse livers following transplantation. hCLiPs redifferentiated into mature hepatocytes in vitro upon treatment with hepatic maturation-inducing factors. These redifferentiated cells exhibited cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymatic activities in response to CYP-inducing molecules and these activities were comparable with those in primary human hepatocytes. These findings will facilitate liver cell transplantation therapy and drug discovery studies.

Data availability

Microarray transcriptome data are available with accession numbers GSE133776 (Reprogramming of primary human hepatocytes (PHHs) into hCLiPs); GSE133777 (Hepatic induction of hCLiPs); GSE133778(Characterization of long term-cultured of hCLiPs); GSE133779 (Transcriptomic analysis of PHHs isolated from hCLiP-transplanted mouse chimeric liver). GSE133776-GSE133779 are included in Superseries GSE133797. Comparative analysis of IPHH and APHH transcriptome is available with an accession number GSE134672.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Takeshi Katsuda

    Division of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  2. Juntaro Matsuzaki

    Division of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3204-5049
  3. Tomoko Yamaguchi

    Division of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  4. Yasuhiro Yamada

    Department of Clinical Pharmaceutics, Nihon Pharmaceutical University, Saitama, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. Marta Prieto-Vila

    Division of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  6. Kazunori Hosaka

    Division of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Atsuko Takeuchi

    Division of Analytical Laboratory, Kobe Pharmaceutical University, Kobe, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  8. Yoshimasa Saito

    Division of Pharmacotherapeutics, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. Takahiro Ochiya

    Division of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
    For correspondence
    tochiya@ncc.go.jp
    Competing interests
    Takahiro Ochiya, Received funding from Interstem Co. Ltd..
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0776-9918

Funding

Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (16fk0310512h0005)

  • Takahiro Ochiya

Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (17fk0310101h0001)

  • Takahiro Ochiya

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science London (16K16643)

  • Takeshi Katsuda

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: Animal experiments in this study were performed in compliance with the guidelines of the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research, National Cancer Center Research Institute. The protocol was approved by the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of National Cancer Center Research Institute (Permit Number: T14-015-E). All surgery was performed under isoflurane anesthesia, and every effort was made to minimize suffering.

Copyright

© 2019, Katsuda et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 5,267
    views
  • 904
    downloads
  • 60
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Takeshi Katsuda
  2. Juntaro Matsuzaki
  3. Tomoko Yamaguchi
  4. Yasuhiro Yamada
  5. Marta Prieto-Vila
  6. Kazunori Hosaka
  7. Atsuko Takeuchi
  8. Yoshimasa Saito
  9. Takahiro Ochiya
(2019)
Generation of human hepatic progenitor cells with regenerative and metabolic capacities from primary hepatocytes
eLife 8:e47313.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.47313

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.47313

Further reading

    1. Cell Biology
    Ryan M Finnerty, Daniel J Carulli ... Wipawee Winuthayanon
    Research Article

    The oviduct is the site of fertilization and preimplantation embryo development in mammals. Evidence suggests that gametes alter oviductal gene expression. To delineate the adaptive interactions between the oviduct and gamete/embryo, we performed a multi-omics characterization of oviductal tissues utilizing bulk RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq), single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq), and proteomics collected from distal and proximal at various stages after mating in mice. We observed robust region-specific transcriptional signatures. Specifically, the presence of sperm induces genes involved in pro-inflammatory responses in the proximal region at 0.5 days post-coitus (dpc). Genes involved in inflammatory responses were produced specifically by secretory epithelial cells in the oviduct. At 1.5 and 2.5 dpc, genes involved in pyruvate and glycolysis were enriched in the proximal region, potentially providing metabolic support for developing embryos. Abundant proteins in the oviductal fluid were differentially observed between naturally fertilized and superovulated samples. RNA-seq data were used to identify transcription factors predicted to influence protein abundance in the proteomic data via a novel machine learning model based on transformers of integrating transcriptomics and proteomics data. The transformers identified influential transcription factors and correlated predictive protein expressions in alignment with the in vivo-derived data. Lastly, we found some differences between inflammatory responses in sperm-exposed mouse oviducts compared to hydrosalpinx Fallopian tubes from patients. In conclusion, our multi-omics characterization and subsequent in vivo confirmation of proteins/RNAs indicate that the oviduct is adaptive and responsive to the presence of sperm and embryos in a spatiotemporal manner.