Liver Testsystem
Microscopic image of liver cells (dark blue) that organize themselves around a capillary seeded with endothelial cells (bright green) in the bioartificial liver model.
Bioartificial human liver tissue with physiologic metabolic properties that can be cultured throughout a period of several weeks represents a promissing test system for Basic and Applied Research. All preceding attempts to culture human or animal liver cells for more than 2 weeks failed due to the absence of a surrounding threedimensional collagenous framework and the absence of a supplying vascular network. The vasculature in the native liver tissue which supplies the liver cells with nutrients and oxygen and removes degradation products, constitutes a polarization of the liver cells and represents one prerequisite for various specific liver functions. In our liver test system the biological capillarized matrix (BioCaM) serves as scaffold for the bioartificial tissue and bridges this gap.
Our bioartificial liver test-system is characterized by the following attributes:
- long service life: The bioartificial liver tissue is viable for more than 3 weeks.
- Phase I and Phase II metabolism: The fundamental metabolic pathways of pharmaco-metabolism and –toxicity can be studied in vitro.
- Induction of metabolic enzymes: For the first time it is possible to simulate the induction of metabolic enzymes by repeated pharmaco application in vitro.
- Continous and tissue-preserving analysis: Our in vitro test-tissue facilitates the continous measurement of metabolic activities, enzyme expression and genomic activation throughout the entire experimental duration.