CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The placenta and fetal membranes have been proposed as an important stem cell source for regenerative medicine. Amniotic epithelial cells (hAECs) can be isolated from the amnion of the human placenta at term. They are pluripotent and they have immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, and regenerative properties. These features position hAECs as an ideal candidate for cell therapy. Hepatic failure is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The available treatments have several obstacles. Recently, hAECs have been spotlighted as an alternative hepatocytes source because of their potential for hepatogenic differentiation. The aim of this work was to study the regenerative capacity of the hepatocyte differentiated hAECs (HD) in a CCl4-induced liver fibrosis mouse model. Previously, we have demonstrated that hAECs efficiently differentiate to hepatic-like cells. We demonstrated that these hepatocyte-like cells are functional by determining glycogen and albumin expression. HD cells were transplanted into CCl4-induced hepatic fibrosis BALB/c mice. After 4 weeks of injection, liver fibrosis characteristic parameters such as necrosis, collagen deposition, and liver enzyme levels were evaluated. We found that the fibrotic nodules decreased in livers transplanted with HD cells. Moreover, the HD cell transplantation reduced the necrosis area and the proinflammatory cell infiltration, evaluated by hematoxylin-eosin staining. We also observed that the collagen deposition, significantly diminished by 1.68-fold in the HD group, analyzed by Masson?s trichrome staining. In addition, the ALT, AST, and AF liver enzyme levels decreased up to 1.18-fold, 1.25-fold, and 1.16-fold respectively, after HD cell treatment, compared with the CCl4 group. Altogether, our results demonstrate the potential application of hAECs derived hepatocyte-like cells for liver disease treatment.