Bioengineered bile duct with cholangiocytes derived from hepatic progenitor cells

Abstract

Cholangiopathies result in the need of a whole liver transplantation which is the only method of treatment. There are also no drugs in the market currently available to help with its treatment. The shortage of organ donors in contrast to the increasing number of transplantations poses a problem with no solution. Many researchers have generated functional cholangiocytes from hESCs and iPSCs. However, these cells raise limitations. Furthermore, there have been no previous reports of patient specific cell differentiation on bioengineered platforms. Through a gelatin culture system with a cocktail of small molecules we are able to differentiate patient specific human chemically derived progenitor cells termed hCdH into cholangiocytes in a 2D culture system as well as bioengineered scaffolds and artificial bile ducts. We can observe that on the bioengineered platforms compared to a 2D culture system, through RT-qPCR and immunohistochemistry, cholangiocyte markers are upregulated which shows an increase in the efficiency of cholangiocyte differentiation. Therefore, we report a method of generating an artificial bile duct and scaffold sheet coated with patient specific cholangiocyte which can open doors to an alternative treatment method