Published online Jun 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i21.6427
Peer-review started: December 5, 2014
First decision: March 10, 2015
Revised: March 24, 2015
Accepted: May 7, 2015
Article in press: May 7, 2015
Published online: June 7, 2015
Core tip: Hepatocyte transplantation is an alternative for liver transplantation in chronic liver disease patients for a long term cure. There is a scarcity of donor liver and hepatocytes. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) derived hepatocytes and hepatocytes generated by transdifferentiation are two possibilities. iPSC derived hepatocytes often fail to engraft upon transplantation. We need to define methods to evaluate and compare efficiency of differentiation, standards and clear quality definition for hepatocyte like cells. More comprehensive analysis of the RNAs and proteome is required. Methods to compare and analyze the expression profiles, standards and references to be compared with need to be defined. There is a need for a well-coordinated global initiative comparable to the scale of the Human Genome Project to achieve this goal in the near future.