Functional characterization of Bio-Artificial Liver

Shishir Kumar Biswas, Purdue University

Abstract

The liver is one of the most critical organs in the human body. It is responsible for converting food and water into energy, filtering the bloodstream of toxins, and aiding in digestion among other functions. While the liver has an incredible capacity to heal itself in response to traumatic injury, diseases such as cirrhosis, hepatitis, and cancer often compromise the liver beyond repair. As a result, around 16,000 people in the United States are in need of a liver transplant at any given time, but only about 6,000 transplants are performed annually. Due to the shortage of donor tissue available, an estimated 1,500 patients on the transplant list die each year waiting. Engineering of Bio-Artificial Liver tissues has the potential to provide an auxiliary source of transplanted tissue. Bio-Artificial tissues have two main components: (1) a biocompatible scaffold for implantation and (2) a cell source for transplant. Given that collagen is a primary component of almost all extra-cellular matrices, collagen-based hydrogels are often utilized as scaffolds. However, hydrogels formed from most commercially available collagen undergo severe contraction under physiological conditions, resulting in abscesses. Abscesses are highly prone to infection and can be fatal, often requiring secondary surgery to fix. In this work, hydrogel contraction is mitigated using a novel, collagen-based scaffold, reducing contraction from 50%+ to 10% of original scaffold diameter. Autogenic cell sources are ideal in creating a bio-artificial tissue as there is no need for a donor source and patient-donor compatibility is no longer a concern. Autologous hepatocytes would likely be compromised from disease, so an alternative cell is required. Bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) are often used in bio-artificial tissues because of their demonstrated ability to differentiate into numerous adult cells types, with some success reported in differentiating them into cells resembling hepatocytes. This study further explores this claim and results show that BMSCs induced to differentiate into hepatocyte-like cells are capable of performing basic hepatic function to some degree. The results suggest that the bio-artificial liver comprised of these components may be able to successfully mimic native tissue and further investigation and characterization of this construct is of merit.

Degree

M.S.B.M.E.

Advisors

Nauman, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Biomedical engineering

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