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. 2012 Mar 22;3(4):246–250. doi: 10.1007/s13238-012-2918-4

Human induced pluripotent stem cells derived hepatocytes: rising promise for disease modeling, drug development and cell therapy

Fei Yi 1, Guang-Hui Liu 1,3,✉, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte 1,2,✉
PMCID: PMC4875479  PMID: 22441839

Abstract

Recent advances in the study of human hepatocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) represent new promises for liver disease study and drug discovery. Human hepatocytes or hepatocyte-like cells differentiated from iPSC recapitulate many functional properties of primary human hepatocytes and have been demonstrated as a powerful and efficient tool to model human liver metabolic diseases and facilitate drug development process. In this review, we summarize the recent progress in this field and discuss the future perspective of the application of human iPSC derived hepatocytes.

Keywords: induced pluripotent stem cells, hepatocytes, disease modeling, drug development, cell therapy

Contributor Information

Guang-Hui Liu, Email: ghliu@ibp.ac.cn.

Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, Email: belmonte@salk.edu, Email: izpisua@cmrb.eu.

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