Mass generation and long-term expansion of hepatocyte organoids from adult primary hepatocytes
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PROVIDER: PRJNA1269964 | ENA |
REPOSITORIES: ENA
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Project description:Adult primary human hepatocytes (PHHs) are the gold standard in ex vivo toxicological studies and possess the clinical potential to treat patients with liver disease as advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs). However, the utility of this valuable cell type has been limited by short-term functionality and limited expansion potential in vitro. While notable advances have been made in the long-term maintenance of primary hepatocytes, there has been limited success in driving the efficient generation and expansion of adult PHH-derived organoids which recapitulate both liver tissue architecture and function, hampering in vitro studies and regenerative medicine applications. Here we describe the mass generation and long-term expansion of hepatocyte organoids with functionally interconnected hepatic and biliary-like structures from adult primary human hepatocytes. Hepatocyte organoids retain the expression of lineage and functional markers, closely resembling PHH, while also acquiring the expression of regeneration, fetal and biliary markers. Organoids perform key hepatocyte functions while proliferating and can be matured to enhance their functionality. As a proof-of-principle, we demonstrate that hepatocyte organoids can recapitulate hallmarks of cholestasis and steatosis in vitro. Moreover, we show that hepatocytes can be transfected, transduced and gene edited in 3D prior to organoid generation, facilitating a wide range of applications. Our novel hepatocyte organoid system bridges the gap between short-term functionality of primary human hepatocytes and the need for scalable, long-term organoid models of the adult liver, offering immense potential for drug testing, disease modeling, and advanced therapeutic applications.
2025-07-23 | GSE298576 | GEO
Project description:Hepatocytes have wide applications in drug development, disease modeling, and cell therapy. However, to expand hepatocytes in large quantities in vitro without losing their functions remains a challenging task. Here we report that IL22, a cytokine highly upregulated after partial hepatectomy or hepatocyte transplantation, could support long-term expansion (>30 passages, with theoretical expansion of ~1025 times within ~150 days) of mice hepatocytes in vitro by dedifferentiate hepatocytes into hepatocyte progenitor cells (HPCs), which maintain the capacity of differentiation into mature hepatocytes. With transcriptomic analysis and lineage-specific deletion, we uncover the critical involvement of STAT3 pathway in IL22-mediated hepatocyte to HPC conversion. Two key transcription factors (TFs) down-stream of STAT3 pathway, Bhlha15 and Arntl2, govern IL22-induced hepatic dedifferentiation. Expression of these two TFs directly initiates the dedifferentiation of hepatocytes into HPCs, which could be expanded in long-term without the supplement of IL22. IL22 also supports human hepatocyte growth in simple culture condition. Within 30 days, human hepatocytes could be expanded by more than 10,000-fold by dedifferentiation into HPCs, which maintain the full capacity of maturation. Collectively, this study provides a simple culture system enables large-scale expansion of both mice and human hepatocytes in vitro, and elucidates the critical pathways and TFs involved in these processes.
2025-03-06 | GSE290952 | GEO
Project description:Advances in 3D cell culture systems, including the hepatic organoids, has shown the potential to model the liver development in vitro. However, hepatocyte-like cells obtained by these means are still immature compared to the primary human hepatocytes. Here we applied single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq to identify gene regulatory mechanisms distinct to mature human hepatocytes (in vivo) and organoid derived hepatocyte like cells (in vitro). Using a modified two-step perfusion protocol, primary hepatocytes from all lobular zones were obtained with high purity. Integrative analysis revealed a key role of transcription factors of the AP-1 family in cooperation with hepatocyte-specific transcription factors, such as HNF4A, in establishing cellular identity of mature hepatocytes. Furthermore, it revealed distinct transcription factor sets required/active in human hepatocytes and liver organoids. Function analysis of an organoid-enriched transcription factor ELF3, showed that decreased expression of ELF3 in liver organoids promotes increased expression of genes typical to mature hepatocytes. This study indicates that ELF3 functions as a barrier of hepatocyte differentiation from liver organoids. Collectively, our integrative analysis provides critical insights into the transcriptional regulatory networks of human hepatocytes and liver organoids, which will further efficient differentiation of functional hepatocytes in vitro.
2024-08-22 | GSE182603 | GEO
Project description:Advances in 3D cell culture systems, including the hepatic organoids, has shown the potential to model the liver development in vitro. However, hepatocyte-like cells obtained by these means are still immature compared to the primary human hepatocytes. Here we applied single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq to identify gene regulatory mechanisms distinct to mature human hepatocytes (in vivo) and organoid derived hepatocyte like cells (in vitro). Using a modified two-step perfusion protocol, primary hepatocytes from all lobular zones were obtained with high purity. Integrative analysis revealed a key role of transcription factors of the AP-1 family in cooperation with hepatocyte-specific transcription factors, such as HNF4A, in establishing cellular identity of mature hepatocytes. Furthermore, it revealed distinct transcription factor sets required/active in human hepatocytes and liver organoids. Function analysis of an organoid-enriched transcription factor ELF3, showed that decreased expression of ELF3 in liver organoids promotes increased expression of genes typical to mature hepatocytes. This study indicates that ELF3 functions as a barrier of hepatocyte differentiation from liver organoids. Collectively, our integrative analysis provides critical insights into the transcriptional regulatory networks of human hepatocytes and liver organoids, which will further efficient differentiation of functional hepatocytes in vitro.
2024-08-22 | GSE182602 | GEO
Project description:Advances in 3D cell culture systems, including the hepatic organoids, has shown the potential to model the liver development in vitro. However, hepatocyte-like cells obtained by these means are still immature compared to the primary human hepatocytes. Here we applied single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq to identify gene regulatory mechanisms distinct to mature human hepatocytes (in vivo) and organoid derived hepatocyte like cells (in vitro). Using a modified two-step perfusion protocol, primary hepatocytes from all lobular zones were obtained with high purity. Integrative analysis revealed a key role of transcription factors of the AP-1 family in cooperation with hepatocyte-specific transcription factors, such as HNF4A, in establishing cellular identity of mature hepatocytes. Furthermore, it revealed distinct transcription factor sets required/active in human hepatocytes and liver organoids. Function analysis of an organoid-enriched transcription factor ELF3, showed that decreased expression of ELF3 in liver organoids promotes increased expression of genes typical to mature hepatocytes. This study indicates that ELF3 functions as a barrier of hepatocyte differentiation from liver organoids. Collectively, our integrative analysis provides critical insights into the transcriptional regulatory networks of human hepatocytes and liver organoids, which will further efficient differentiation of functional hepatocytes in vitro.
2024-08-22 | GSE182604 | GEO
Project description:We generated intrahepatic cholangiocyte organoids and fetal hepatocyte organoids to compare their transcriptomic profile with liver tissue, primary human hepatocytes, and other hepatocyte model systems.
2022-09-25 | GSE214097 | GEO
Project description:Mechanisms underlying human hepatocyte growth in development and regeneration are incompletely understood. In vitro, human fetal hepatocytes (FH) can be robustly grown as organoids, while adult primary human hepatocyte (PHH) organoids remain difficult to expand, suggesting different growth requirements between fetal and adult hepatocytes. Here, we characterize hepatocyte organoid outgrowth using temporal transcriptomic and phenotypic approaches. FHs initiate reciprocal transcriptional programs involving increased proliferation and repressed lipid metabolism upon initiation of organoid growth. We exploited these insights to design maturation conditions for FH organoids, resulting in acquisition of mature hepatocyte morphological traits and increased expression of functional markers. During PHH organoid outgrowth in the same culture condition, the adult transcriptomes initially mimic the fetal transcriptomic signatures, but PHHs rapidly acquire disbalanced proliferation-lipid metabolism dynamics, resulting in steatosis and halted organoid growth. IL6 supplementation, as emerged from the fetal dataset, and simultaneous activation of the metabolic regulator FXR, prevents steatosis and promotes PHH proliferation, resulting in improved expansion of the derived organoids. Single-cell RNA sequencing analyses reveal preservation of their fetal and adult hepatocyte identities in the respective organoid cultures. Our findings uncover mitogen requirements and metabolic differences determining proliferation of hepatocytes changing from development to adulthood.
2024-04-30 | GSE264261 | GEO
Project description:Mechanisms underlying human hepatocyte growth in development and regeneration are incompletely understood. In vitro, human fetal hepatocytes (FH) can be robustly grown as organoids, while adult primary human hepatocyte (PHH) organoids remain difficult to expand, suggesting different growth requirements between fetal and adult hepatocytes. Here, we characterize hepatocyte organoid outgrowth using temporal transcriptomic and phenotypic approaches. FHs initiate reciprocal transcriptional programs involving increased proliferation and repressed lipid metabolism upon initiation of organoid growth. We exploited these insights to design maturation conditions for FH organoids, resulting in acquisition of mature hepatocyte morphological traits and increased expression of functional markers. During PHH organoid outgrowth in the same culture condition, the adult transcriptomes initially mimic the fetal transcriptomic signatures, but PHHs rapidly acquire disbalanced proliferation-lipid metabolism dynamics, resulting in steatosis and halted organoid growth. IL6 supplementation, as emerged from the fetal dataset, and simultaneous activation of the metabolic regulator FXR, prevents steatosis and promotes PHH proliferation, resulting in improved expansion of the derived organoids. Single-cell RNA sequencing analyses reveal preservation of their fetal and adult hepatocyte identities in the respective organoid cultures. Our findings uncover mitogen requirements and metabolic differences determining proliferation of hepatocytes changing from development to adulthood.
2024-04-30 | GSE264260 | GEO
Project description:While human hepatocytes in the adult liver perform hundreds of life-sustaining functions, culture methods to support their phenotype and function in vitro remain elusive. Here, we describe establishment of an organoid culture system for adult human hepatocytes and demonstrate its robustness by generating organoids from eight different adult donors. Organoids accurately model the phenotype and morphology of hepatocytes in the adult liver, express a mature liver transcriptome distinct from fetal hepatocytes, and exhibit mature functions such as inducible cytochrome activity. Finally, hepatocyte organoids efficiently engraft in vivo in engineered tissues, exhibiting up to 25-fold greater functionality after engraftment compared to previous adult hepatocyte models. Furthermore, organoids negate the need for inclusion of exogenous non-parenchymal cells in engineered tissues to support engraftment, an important translational milestone. These results demonstrate the potential of adult human hepatocyte organoids for basic and translational applications such as pharmaceutical screening and hepatic regenerative medicine.
2025-07-02 | GSE207434 | GEO
Project description:We previously showed that severe liver diseases are characterized by expansion of liver progenitor cells (LPC), which correlates with disease severity. However, the origin and role of LPC in liver physiology and in the hepatic response to injury remains a contentious topic. We have now used genetic lineage tracing of Hnf1β-expressing biliary duct cells to assess their contribution to LPC expansion and hepatocyte generation during normal liver homeostasis, and following different types of liver injury. We found that ductular reaction cells in human cirrhotic livers express HNF1β. However, HNF1β expression was not present in newly generated EpCAM-positive hepatocytes. Using a tamoxifen-inducible Hnf1βCreER/R26RYFP/LacZ mouse, we show that there is no contribution of the biliary epithelium to hepatocyte turnover during liver homeostasis in healthy mice. Moreover, after loss of liver mass, Hnf1β+ LPC did not contribute to hepatocyte regeneration. We also assessed the contribution of Hnf1β+ cells following acute and repeated liver injury. All animal models showed expansion of LPC, as assessed by immunostaining and gene expression profile of sorted YFP-positive cells. A contribution of Hnf1β+ LPC to hepatocyte generation was not detected in animal models of liver injury with preserved hepatocyte regenerative potential such as acute acetaminophen, carbon tetrachloride injury, or chronic diethoxycarbonyl-1,4-dihydro-collidin (DDC)-diet. However, in mice fed with choline-deficient ethionine-supplemented (CDE)-diet, which causes profound hepatocyte damage and arrest, a small number of hepatocytes were derived from Hnf1β+ cells. Conclusion: Hnf1β+ cells do not participate in hepatocyte turnover in the healthy liver or during liver regeneration after partial hepatectomy. After liver injury, LPC arise from the biliary duct epithelium, which gives rise to a limited number of hepatocytes only when hepatocyte regeneration is compromised. Transcriptomic profile using MoGeneST-2.0 chip from 3 samples of YFP+ CDE, 3 samples of YFP+ DDC, 2 samples of YFP+ UTR and 3 samples YFP-
2016-07-03 | E-GEOD-51389 | biostudies-arrayexpress