Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 14, 2018; 24(2): 237-247
Published online Jan 14, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i2.237
Transplantation of bone marrow-derived endothelial progenitor cells and hepatocyte stem cells from liver fibrosis rats ameliorates liver fibrosis
Ling Lan, Ran Liu, Ling-Yun Qin, Peng Cheng, Bo-Wei Liu, Bing-Yong Zhang, Song-Ze Ding, Xiu-Ling Li
Ling Lan, Bo-Wei Liu, Bing-Yong Zhang, Song-Ze Ding, Xiu-Ling Li, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the People’s Hospital of Zhengzhou University (the Henan Provincial People’s Hospital), Zhengzhou 450003, Henan Province, China
Ran Liu, Department of Oncology, Henan Provincial Rongjun Hospital, Xinxiang 453000, Henan Province, China
Ling-Yun Qin, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the Children’s Hospital of Zhengzhou, Zhengzhou 450003, Henan Province, China
Peng Cheng, Intensive Care Unit, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Luohe Medical College, Luohe 462000, Henan Province, China
Author contributions: Lan L and Liu R contributed equally to this study and are the co-first authors; Lan L and Liu R designed the study; Lan L, Liu R, Qin LY, Cheng P and Zhang BY performed the study; Lan L, Liu R and Qin LY wrote the paper; Liu BW and Zhang BY established the rat models; Ding SZ and Li XL collected and analyzed the data.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30900598; the Basic and Advanced Technology Research Program of Henan Province, No. 142300410380; and the Medical Science and Technology Project of Henan Province, No. 201303211.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, China.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All procedures involving animals were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use committee of the Animal Experiment Center of Henan Province, China [SCXK(Yu)2005-0001].
Conflict-of-interest statement: Potential conflicts of interest do not exist.
Data sharing statement: 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: Ling Lan, PhD, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the People’s Hospital of Zhengzhou University (the Henan Provincial People’s Hospital), 7 Weiwu Road, Zhengzhou 450003, Henan Province, China. lanling95@163.com
Telephone: +86-371-65580603 Fax: +86-371-6596 4376
Received: September 30, 2017
Peer-review started: October 1, 2017
First decision: October 25, 2017
Revised: November 6, 2017
Accepted: November 22, 2017
Article in press: November 22, 2017
Published online: January 14, 2018
Processing time: 105 Days and 21.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: In addition to liver regeneration, hepatic neovascularization and endothelial/sinusoidal remodeling are critical factors for the treatment of liver fibrosis. Bone marrow-derived endothelial progenitor cells (BM-EPCs) have been shown to play a role in hepatic angiogenesis and to be beneficial in liver fibrosis. However, BM-EPCs are all derived from healthy individuals in recent studies. Here, we evaluated the feasibility of obtaining normal BM-EPCs from rats with liver fibrosis, and the effectiveness of combined transplantation of BM-EPCs and bone marrow-derived hepatocyte stem cells for treating liver fibrosis in order to achieve the dual effects of hepatic neovascularization and liver regeneration.