Cell Stem Cell: Thyroid hormone found to be a missing ingredient in lab-made liver cells

One challenge Jaenisch's lab is focusing on is how to eliminate the differences between the cell types found in the body and their stem cell-derived equivalents

Haiting Ma, a postdoctoral researcher in Jaenisch's lab, decided to tackle this problem with hepatocytes, the predominant cell type in the liver

The liver filters everything that enters the body through the digestive system

In this study, Ma Jaenisch and hepatocyte stem cells were grown in two settings: a typical 2D culture in which cells were grown in a dish, and 3D spheroids, in which cells started in normal culture were allowed to grow into three-dimensional cells ball

"3D culture not only aids in the maturation of hepatocytes, but can also be used to expand the production of cells, which could be very useful in future cell therapy," Ma said

However, both groups of lab-derived cells lacked important features of adult liver cells

Normally, THRB has a partner that helps it bind to DNA, the thyroid hormone T3

Taken together, this work leads to a better way to create adult hepatocytes from stem cells in the lab—using 3D spheroid cultures and adding T3

The new and improved stem cell-derived hepatocytes are still not a perfect match for adult hepatocytes -- the researchers have ideas for the missing features they'll address next -- but the current cells' ability to integrate seamlessly into the liver, from the analysis The resulting metrics suggest that they will be good models for liver-related diseases and suggest that they will play a role in various projects

"As we improve the fidelity of the cell types from which stem cells are derived, we open up new opportunities for research," Jaenisch said