Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. Sep 26, 2019; 11(9): 650-665
Published online Sep 26, 2019. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v11.i9.650
Impelling force and current challenges by chemicals in somatic cell reprogramming and expansion beyond hepatocytes
Jian-Yun Ge, Yun-Wen Zheng, Li-Ping Liu, Hiroko Isoda, Tatsuya Oda
Jian-Yun Ge, Yun-Wen Zheng, Li-Ping Liu, Tatsuya Oda, Department of Gastrointestinal and Hepato-Biliary-Pancreatic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8575, Japan
Yun-Wen Zheng, Li-Ping Liu, Institute of Regenerative Medicine and Affiliated Hospital, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212001, Jiangsu Province, China
Yun-Wen Zheng, Department of Regenerative Medicine, School of Medicine, Yokohama City University, Yokohama 236-0004, Japan
Hiroko Isoda, Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, Japan
Author contributions: Zheng YW designed and conceived the writing; Ge JY and Zheng YW designed the figure and tables; Ge JY collected the data and drafted the manuscript; Zheng YW, Liu LP, Isoda H, and Oda T contributed to discussing, reviewing, and revising the final manuscript; all the authors approved the final manuscript.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81770621; Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan, KAKENHI, No. 16K15604 and No. 18H02866; Japan Science and Technology Agency-Japan International Cooperation Agency’s (JST-JICA) Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS) Project.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
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/
Corresponding author: Yun-Wen Zheng, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Gastrointestinal and Hepato-Biliary-Pancreatic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8575, Japan. ywzheng@md.tsukuba.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-29-8533221 Fax: +81-29-8533222
Received: March 2, 2019
Peer-review started: March 4, 2019
First decision: June 5, 2019
Revised: July 7, 2019
Accepted: August 21, 2019
Article in press: August 21, 2019
Published online: September 26, 2019
Processing time: 208 Days and 14 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Chemical-mediated reprogramming is a promising strategy for generating desired cells. However, chemical-mediated pluripotent reprogramming has reproducibility difficulties, and direct lineage conversion shows significant deficiency in cell function maturation. On the other hand, direct lineage expansion from target cells not only bypasses pluripotency-related tumorigenesis but also has superior posttransplantation advantages in engraftment and functional maturation. Recent achievements in chemical expansion of human hepatocytes may help solve the cell source limitation in liver disease treatment.