Human amniotic membrane as a stem cell source for liver diseases treatment

RODRIGO RIEDEL; ANTONIO PÉREZ-PÉREZ; LUCIANO PÉREZ; ROBERTO CASALE; ORNELLA PAROLINI; VICTOR SÁNCHEZ-MARGALET; CECILIA LAURA VARONE; JULIETA LORENA MAYMÓ

Bogotá

Congreso; IX SLIMP-Latin American Society for Materno Fetal Interaction and Placenta.; 2022

SLIMP-Latin American Society for Materno Fetal Interaction and Placenta.

Human placenta is an important stem cell source for regenerative medicine. Various types of stem cells can be isolated from the placenta and its annexes, including amniotic epithelial cells (hAEC). The hAECs express stem cell markers and are pluripotent. Furthermore, they possess immunomodulatory characteristics. These properties make the amnion a useful and uncontroversial source of cells for regenerative and transplant medicine. Liver diseases affect millions of people around the world. Currently, the only effective therapy for the final stages is the organ transplant, and there are several obstacles in this regard. Recently, stem cells have been highlighted as an alternative source of hepatocytes due to their differentiation ability.The particular objectives of this work were: 1-The hepatic differentiation of the human amniotic membrane epithelial cells (hAECs) and the characterization of the differentiated cells; 2- The study of the cellular mechanisms involved in the hepatic differentiation of hAECs; 3- The evaluation of the regenerative properties of differentiated hAECs, in a hepatic fibrosis murine model, in vivo.Our results demonstrate that hAECs differentiate to hepatocytes-like cells in vitro. Moreover, our differentiation protocol promotes hAECs survival and proliferation, favoring the qualitative and quantitative cell conditions, before a possible transplant. We demonstrated that the MAPK, PI3K and -catenin signaling pathways are involved in the differentiation process. We have also shown that differentiated hAECs decrease liver damage in a murine model of fibrosis in vivo.Our studies suggest that hAECs successfully differentiate into functional hepatocytes, which represents an important progress for their future application in the treatment of liver diseases.