Refashioned rat livers could boost transplants

Health 14 June 2010

New Scientist Default ImageAn artificial liver scaffold (left), just like the real thing (right)

Livers stripped bare of their original tissue then recoated with new cells have been successfully transplanted into rats for the first time.

Korkut Uygun at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and his colleagues stripped rat livers of their original tissue by exposing them to a powerful detergent. What remained were cell-free “scaffolds” of collagen, but with the overall architecture of the liver intact, including channels for blood vessels, chambers and ducts.

The team pumped around 50 million rat liver cells into each of five bare scaffolds, then incubated the organs in culture for two weeks. Finally, they plumbed the reconstituted organs into genetically similar rats, where they functioned normally.


If the procedure works in humans, it would enable donated livers from humans, and possibly even from pigs, to be re-coated with a patient’s own cells, reducing the likelihood of organ rejection.

It would also enable doctors to make use of donated livers that are otherwise rejected because they are too fatty or damaged in transport.

Journal reference: Nature Medicine, DOI: 10.1038/nm.2170

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