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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 21, 2015; 21(19): 5856-5866
Published online May 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i19.5856
Published online May 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i19.5856
Hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α induces a tendency of differentiation and activation of rat hepatic stellate cells
Kai Liu, Xiao-Ya Li, Yang Xu, Wei-Dan Ji, Jia-He Yang, Ji-Cheng Duan, Department of Molecular Oncology and Laparoscopic Surgery, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgical Hospital and National Center of Liver Cancer, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200438, China
Ming-Gao Guo, Department of Surgery, Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University, Shanghai 200233, China
Xiao-Li Lou, Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200438, China
Xuan-Dong Huang, Department of Oncological Surgery, Second People’s Hospital of Huai’an, Jiangsu Province 223002, China
Author contributions: Liu K, Guo MG and Lou XL performed the experiments and contributed equally to this work; Guo MG and Duan JC designed the research and contributed equally to this work; Xu Y, Ji WD, Huang XD and Yang JH contributed new reagents and analyzed data; and Liu K, Lou XL, Li XY, Guo MG and Duan JC wrote the paper.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81070359.
Ethics approval: The study was reviewed and approved by the Second Military Medical University Institutional Review Board.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors declared no competing financial interests.
Data sharing: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ji-Cheng Duan, MD, Department of Molecular Oncology and Laparoscopic Surgery, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgical Hospital and National Center of Liver Cancer, Second Military Medical University, Xiang Yin Road No. 800, Shanghai 200438, China. jichengduanren@163.com
Telephone: +86-21-81875263
Received: November 18, 2014
Peer-review started: November 19, 2014
First decision: December 26, 2014
Revised: January 15, 2015
Accepted: February 11, 2015
Article in press: February 11, 2015
Published online: May 21, 2015
Peer-review started: November 19, 2014
First decision: December 26, 2014
Revised: January 15, 2015
Accepted: February 11, 2015
Article in press: February 11, 2015
Published online: May 21, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: Hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α (HNF4α) is an important transcription factor in liver differentiation. When enhancing HNF4α expression in hepatic stellate cell line hepatic stellate cells (HSCs)-T6, the expression of G-P-6, PEPCK, and E-cadherin was upregulated, the expression of Type I collagen, α-SMA, TIMP-1, and vimentin was downregulated, and the induced cells were positive for AFP and ALB. When silencing HNF4α expression with shRNA vector, EPCK and E-cadherin were downregulated and α-SMA and vimentin were upregulated. The results demonstrated that HNF4α can induce a tendency of differentiation of HSCs into hepatocyte-like cells. These findings may provide an effective method for treating liver diseases.