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研究発表を行った学会；
・第３３回日本分子生物学会年会　
　２０１０年１２月７日〜１０日（神戸）

タイトル；A novel culture environment that promotes hepatic differentiation from human iPS and mouse ES cells.
　
発表者；　山添　太士　氏
　　　（熊本大学　発生医学研究所　多能性幹細胞分野）

Abstract；
In drug discovery, many researchers often use primary cultures of hepatocytes for assays as its safety test, but they are short-lived and cannot be maintained in culture for long term. In addition, there are considerable donor dependent variations. Embryonic stem (ES) cells are pluripotent cells derived from the inner cell mass of the blastocyst. Lines of evidence have shown that ES cells recapitulate normal developmental processes, and suggest that ES cells provide an attractive source for routine access to large numbers of cells enable for the development of new drug-screening strategies.
We have previously reported that culturing ES cells on a mesonephric cell line, M15, with specific growth factors results in a selective induction of hepatic differentiation of ES cells at a high efficiency (Shiraki N., et al, 2008). Here, we established a novel hepatic differentiation method using synthetic nanofiber (NF) as a cell culture scaffold. First, we performed hepatic differentiation of mouse ES (mES) cells using NF based methods in comparison with M15 systems. The function of mES-derived hepatocyte is analyzed by RT-PCR, immunocytochemical analysis, indocyanine green test, cytochrome P450 activity and albumin secretion measurement. As a result, NF is similarly effective in supporting the hepatic differentiation of mES cells as compared to M15 cells. Moreover, NF method was applicable for hepatic differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. As this NF method is a serum-free and feeder-free system, it would be useful for Xeno-free culture of human iPS cells in the field of regenerative medicine.