Transplantation of hepatic stellate, genetically modified genes hgf and fgf4, stimulates differentiation of hepatocytes in rats after partial hepatectomy

Chronic liver diseases of different etiology are the problem of the modern medicine. Nowadays is held an active search for new methods of treatment for these diseases using stem cells and methods of gene-cell therapy. One of the cell types, thought to be progenitor cells of the liver, - hepatic stellate cells. Previously was shown the possibility of hepatic stellate cells to differentiate into the cells with hepatocytes phenotype after transplantation into the rats with partial hepatectomy. In this work we studied rat liver regeneration on the same model of liver damage after transplantation of the hepatic stellate cells, transduced with therapeutic genes of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and fibroblast growth factor 4 (FGF4) in combination with tracer gene of red fluorescent protein (RFP). The results of the survey demonstrated that transduction of the hepatic stellate cells with these genes facilitates engraftment of the transplanted cells and their further differentiation into hepatic direction, that was confirmed by a large number of hepatocytes, expressing tracer gene RFP, as well as a large number of α-fetoprotein positive hepatoblasts in compare to the animals, that had transplantation of cells, transduced only with tracer gene.