Fig. 2

Architecture of the adult liver. a Hepatocytes are perfused by blood from the portal vein and hepatic artery, which flows into the central vein. Bile, secreted by hepatocytes, is transported through the canal of Hering to the bile duct. b Tissue homeostasis involves limited self-renewal (dashed arrows) of hepatocytes and bile duct cells, with no interconversion between these cell types. c After hepatectomy, both bile duct cells and hepatocytes can self-renew, but bile duct cells do not become hepatocytes. In the oval cell response, adult hepatocytes and periportal ductal ‘oval’ cells in the canal of Hering proliferate; oval cells differentiate into hepatocytes to replenish hepatocyte numbers when hepatocyte replication is impaired. Figure adapted, with permission from Springer Nature, from Kopp et al.¹⁵