Delivering genes or siRNAs to the liver is only half the battle – once there, the nucleic acid must persist long enough to be effective. The body has evolved potent nuclease systems to degrade foreign genetic material as a defense against viruses and transposons. Therefore, nucleic acid degradation pathways represent a major hurdle in liver…
The development of 3D liver organoids marks a significant advance in modeling liver physiology and pathology in vitro. Derived from pluripotent stem cells, adult stem/progenitor cells, or primary tissue, liver organoids consist of hepatocytes and often cholangiocytes in a spherical or tissue-like arrangement that allows cell polarity, multi-lineage interactions, and liver-specific functions (e.g., albumin secretion,…
In many liver-directed experiments, researchers need to deliver more than one genetic element at once. Perhaps you want to express a therapeutic enzyme and a fluorescent marker to visualize the cells, or introduce a gene of interest and a control reporter to normalize for transfection efficiency. Co-transfection – the process of simultaneously delivering multiple nucleic…
The liver extracellular matrix is a dynamic scaffold that not only provides structural support but also influences cell behavior and drug delivery. It resides in the space of Disse (between hepatocytes and sinusoidal endothelial cells) and in the periportal and pericentral regions of liver lobules, and it undergoes significant remodeling in disease states. For gene…
Human liver metabolism of xenobiotics (drugs, toxins) is primarily mediated by a family of enzymes known as cytochrome P450s. These enzymes, each with unique substrate specificities, determine how quickly compounds are cleared or activated. However, commonly used liver-derived cell lines like HepG2 or Huh-7 do not express many CYP enzymes at levels comparable to primary…
Glypican-3 (GPC3) is a heparan sulfate proteoglycan tethered to the cell membrane, and it has emerged as a signature biomarker of hepatocellular carcinoma. In healthy adult liver, GPC3 is essentially absent, but in 70–80% of HCC cases it is abundantly expressed on the tumor cell surface. This stark contrast makes GPC3 an ideal target for…
Once foreign DNA is introduced into a hepatocyte (via lipofection, electroporation, viral vectors, etc.), its ultimate goal is to enter the nucleus where transcription occurs. The path from the cell membrane to the nucleus is fraught with challenges. Endocytic vesicles can trap the DNA and shunt it to lysosomes for degradation; the crowded cytoplasm and…
While the primary goal of transfection is gene delivery, the process inevitably interacts with the immune system. The liver, as a central immunological organ, contains various cell types (hepatocytes, Kupffer cells, liver sinusoidal endothelial cells, and infiltrating immune cells) that can mount inflammatory responses when they detect foreign genetic material. Transfection-induced inflammatory signaling refers to…
Transfection—the introduction of exogenous DNA or RNA into cells—is a cornerstone of liver-directed gene therapy and research. However, beyond the immediate expression of delivered genes, transfection can induce epigenetic changes that regulate how long and how strongly those genes are expressed. In liver cells, epigenetic modulation following transfection encompasses chemical modifications to DNA and histones…
The CRISPR-Cas9 system has revolutionized genome editing, and applying it specifically to the liver holds promise for treating genetic liver diseases and studying gene function. Liver-specific CRISPR-Cas9 transfection involves delivering CRISPR components (Cas9 nuclease and guide RNA) in a manner that confines editing activity largely to hepatocytes. Achieving this specificity via transfection (non-viral delivery) requires…
