Transcriptional regulatory networks governing stem cell differentiation into hepatocytes in vitro

The differentiation of embryonic stem cells (ESC) to hepatocytes offers the possibility of unlimited supply of human hepatocytes for cell therapy and biomedical research. However, current protocols achieve only a partial hepatocyte differentiation. This is largely due to our poor understanding of the transcriptional regulatory networks (TRN) governing stem cell and hepatocyte plasticity. Therefore, we performed a bioinformatics approach based on whole-genome expression analysis of human stem cells, hepatocyte-like cells (HLC) and primary hepatocytes (Hep) freshly after isolation (FH) and in different culture con…