Title:MicroRNAs: Crucial Players in the Differentiation of Human Pluripotent
and Multipotent Stem Cells into Functional Hepatocyte-Like Cells
Volume: 17
Issue: 8
Author(s): Hao Xu, Liying Wu*, Guojia Yuan, Xiaolu Liang, Xiaoguang Liu, Zuobiao Li, Nianping Chen and Maryam Farzaneh*
Affiliation:
- Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang, Guangdong, 524001 China
- Fertility, Infertility
and Perinatology Research Center, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran
Keywords:
Liver diseases, pluripotent stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells, microRNAs, hepatocytes.
Abstract: Hepatic disease negatively impacts liver function and metabolism. Primary human hepatocytes
are the gold standard for the prediction and successful treatment of liver disease. However,
the sources of hepatocytes for drug toxicity testing and disease modeling are limited. To overcome
this issue, pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) have emerged as an alternative strategy for liver disease
therapy. Human PSCs, including embryonic stem cells (ESC) and induced pluripotent stem cells
(iPSC) can self-renew and give rise to all cells of the body. Human PSCs are attractive cell sources
for regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, drug discovery, and developmental studies. Several
recent studies have shown that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can also differentiate (or trans-differentiate)
into hepatocytes. Differentiation of human PSCs and MSCs into functional hepatocytelike
cells (HLCs) opens new strategies to study genetic diseases, hepatotoxicity, infection of hepatotropic
viruses, and analyze hepatic biology. Numerous in vitro and in vivo differentiation protocols
have been established to obtain human PSCs/MSCs-derived HLCs and mimic their characteristics.
It was recently discovered that microRNAs (miRNAs) play a critical role in controlling the ectopic
expression of transcription factors and governing the hepatocyte differentiation of human
PSCs and MSCs. In this review, we focused on the role of miRNAs in the differentiation of human
PSCs and MSCs into hepatocytes.
