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Myosin-1c is an unconventional myosin involved in hair-cell mechanotransduction, a process that underlies our senses of hearing and balance. To study the interaction of myosin-1c with other components of the hair-cell transduction complex, we have developed an in situ binding assay th ...

Identification of the molecular composition of the cargo transported by individual kinesin motors is critical to an understanding of both motor function and regulation of the proper intracellular placement of numerous cellular components including proteins, RNA, and organell ...

Kinesins are a superfamily of microtubule-based motors that power intracellular traffic and play important roles in many fundamental cellular and developmental processes. Kinesins move on microtubules from their minus to plus end (conventional kinesin) or from plus to minus end (C- ...

The use of isolated human hepatocyte infusions to treat human disease will require safe, acceptable, reliable, and reproducible measures of engraftment and function of the donor liver cell. Cell transplant for inborn errors of hepatic metabolism can be followed by measuring the specific ...

The poor hepatocyte engraftment efficiency and the low level of their expansion in the host liver are a major limitation to cell therapy for the treatment of life-threatening liver diseases. Many rodent models have shown that liver repopulation via transplanted hepatocytes occurs only w ...

In this chapter, we describe techniques used to determine the efficiency of hepatocyte transplantation in animal models of liver disease. We have included the Gunn rat as a model of an inherited liver disease without hepatocyte damage and Abcb4 knockout mice as a model for an inherited liver dise ...

Apoptosis has been documented as a frequent hurdle phenomenon that occurs in human hepatocytes during isolation, storage, infusion and after engraftment within the recipient liver parenchyma. Apoptosis is an active form of cell death that involves programmed cellular machineri ...

Hepatic microsomal cytochrome P450 (CYP) forms have a major role in the metabolism of drugs and other chemicals. Primary hepatocyte cultures from humans and experimental animals are a valuable in vitro system for studying the effects of chemicals on CYP forms. This chapter describes metho ...

Different sources of hepatic tissue, including whole or split livers from organ donors or from cadavers, waste liver from therapeutic hepatectomies or small-sized surgical biopsies, can be successfully used to prepare human hepatocytes cultures. The two-step collagenase perfus ...

Successful cryopreservation of hepatocytes is essential for their use in hepatocyte transplantation. Cryopreservation allows hepatocytes to be available for emergency treatment of acute liver failure and also for planned treatment of liver-based metabolic disorders. In a ...

Protocols for isolation of human hepatocytes have been developed. The isolated cells can be used not only in research but also for transplantation in patients with liver disease, especially acute liver failure and liver-based metabolic/synthetic conditions. The aim of hepatocyte tr ...

For clinical hepatocyte transplantation, cells need to be prepared in a sterile GMP environment. Strict regulations are in place that set the standard for this environment that cells are prepared in. These regulations control all aspects of the environment. In the United Kingdom, the labor ...

Cell transplantation is a promising approach to improve the life of patients with liver disease. At present, however, techniques to track and visualise transplanted cells in patients are fairly limited and further development of non-invasive imaging technology is needed to advance the ...

The human intrahepatic biliary epithelium is composed of a morphologically heterogeneous population of epithelial cells. During liver cirrhosis, new biliary ductular structures develop at the portal margins that express markers of immaturity such as CD56 and Bcl-2. These markers ...

Hepatocyte transplantation has recently become an efficient clinical method in the treatment of patients with metabolic liver diseases. The shortage of donor cells remains an obstacle to treat more patients. Foetal liver tissues may therefore be useful as an alternative source of gene ...

Use of human hepatocytes for therapeutic and drug discovery applications is hampered by limited tissue source and the inability of hepatocytes to proliferate and maintain function long-term in vitro. Human embryonic stem (hES) cells are immortal and pluripotent and may provide a cell so ...

Cells isolated from the placenta have been the subject of intense investigation because many of the cells express characteristics of multipotent or even pluripotent stem cells. Cells from the placental tissues such as amnion and chorion have been reported to display multilineage diff ...

Bone marrow cells can engraft in the liver and differentiate into a variety of cell types including hepatocytes and myofibroblasts. This chapter describes how, after transplantation of male bone marrow into female recipients, cells of bone marrow origin (male) can be identified in the fema ...

Ex vivo gene transfer into hepatocytes could serve several purposes in the context of gene therapy or cell transplantation: (1) isolated hepatocytes can be transduced in culture with therapeutic genes and then transplanted into the recipient; (2) marker genes can be introduced for subseq ...

Hepatocyte transplantation has therapeutic potential for multiple hepatic and extrahepatic disorders with genetic or acquired basis. To demonstrate whether cell populations of interest will be effective for clinical applications, it is first necessary to characterize the ...