Use of mouse liver mesothelial cells to prevent postoperative adhesion and promote liver regeneration after hepatectomy

Abstract

Repeated hepatectomy is widely accepted as one of the most effective curative treatment for recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma or liver metastasis from colorectal cancer. It has, however, two critical issues; postoperative adhesion and decrease of liver regenerative capacity. Postoperative adhesion makes surgical operations technically more demanding, leading to increased mortality and morbidity rates. Although the liver has a remarkable regenerative ability, volume and functional restoration after multiple repeated hepatectomy is not generally complete. So a new procedure that overcomes these two issues is required. We examined if a fetal liver mesothelial cells (FL-MCs) sheet could solve these two clinical issues simultaneously. We established a novel mouse hepatectomy model that reproduces postoperative adhesion on the resected liver surface. We isolated FL-MCs from mouse fetal liver and prepared a cell sheet. The FL-MCs sheet was then transplanted to the resected liver surface. The FL-MCs sheet effectively prevented postoperative adhesion by expressing PCLP1, one of the transmembrane sialomucin family proteins and by activating the fibrinolytic system. Furthermore, the FL-MCs sheet facilitated liver regeneration by providing growth factors for hepatocytes, allowing quick recovery of liver weight and function. Additionally, we showed that an allogeneic FL-MCs sheet was as effective as a syngeneic cell sheet. We demonstrate that the FL-MCs sheet is able to not only prevent postoperative adhesion but also promote liver regeneration in both syngeneic and allogeneic transplantation, and hence FL-MCs may serve as a potentially useful cell source for regenerative medicine after hepatectomy.