Engineered liver tissue in vitro to mimic liver functions and its biomedical applications

Abstract

The liver is an important organ with metabolic functions, and plays the important role of deoxidizing, storing liver sugar, synthesizing secretory proteins and other functions inside the body. The prevalence of liver disease has been increasing in recent years. For acute liver failure, liver cancer and other serious liver diseases, the best treatment is liver transplantation. However, still there is shortage of organs in clinical practice. Under such a severe background, it is very important to cultivate liver tissue in vitro to make up for the shortage of organs and to test the hepatotoxicity of drugs. In this review, we will introduce the structure of liver and the function of liver cells, summarize several methods of liver tissue culture in vitro, and introduce the application of liver tissue culture in vitro. Finally, we forecast the development prospects of the liver tissue.