A review of: Lagasse E, Connors H, Al-Dhalimy M, Reitsma M, Dohse M, Osborne L, Wang X, Finegold M, Weissman IL, Grompe M 2000 Purified hematopoietic stem cells can differentiate into hepatocytes in vivo. Nature Med 6:1229–1234

This latest report from the group of Marcus Grompe represents another step in the exciting progress with stem cells. Working with a murine model of hereditary tyrosinemia type 1 (HT1, fumaryl acetoacetate hydrolase [FAH] deficiency), Grompe's group has investigated the problem of repopulating a defective liver with extraneous hepatocytes. They showed that hepatocytes with the normal FAH gene (naturally or after gene transduction) have a proliferative advantage over abnormal hepatocytes with HT1 (1). In their model, normal adult differentiated hepatocytes retain a formidable capacity for repopulating a damaged liver (approximately 70 cell doublings), but these hepatocytes, which they term “regenerative transplantable hepatocytes,” did not form bile duct epithelial cells or other cellular elements of the normal liver. Therefore, a more plastic progenitor cell must exist.

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