Stem Cell-Based Hepatic Differentiation for Cell Therapy of Liver Diseases

Alternative liver disease treatment has been intensively studied because of the shortage of donated organs for transplantation and difficulty in culturing primary human hepatocytes for cell therapy. Human hepatocytes generated from pluripotent stem cells evolved as a promising treatment for liver disease as a means to overcome these limitations. Recently, embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and adult stein cells have been successfully differentiated into hepatocyte-like cells in vitro. However, it is difficult to compare the results of previous studies because of multiple paths of differentiation using many different standards, protocols, and animal models. Additionally, these cells are required to examine their functionality, their liver regenerating mechanism after appropriate animal models of liver disease prior to clinical trials. In this review paper, we summarize a variety of stem cells and their individual characteristics, which provide multiple opportunities for cell therapy treatment of liver disease patients. Furthermore, we present the current standard of applicable preclinical hepatocytes derived from stem cells such as experimental indicators for differentiation in vitro, confirmation of survival, engraftment, and function after cell transplantation into various preclinical liver disease animal models.