Michalopoulos George K
Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Bioscience Tower South, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
Expert Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2014 Nov;8(8):897-907. doi: 10.1586/17474124.2014.934358. Epub 2014 Jun 26.
Liver regeneration after partial hepatectomy is the only example of a regenerative process in mammals in which the organ/body weight ratio returns to 100% of the original when the process is complete. The adjustment of liver weight to the needs of the body suggests a complicated set of control points, a 'hepatostat'. There has been much progress in elucidation of mechanisms involved in initiation of liver regeneration. More recent studies have focused on termination pathways, because these may be the underlying controls of the hepatostat and their elimination may be relevant to hepatic neoplasia. When the standard regenerative process is thwarted due to failure of either hepatocytes or biliary epithelial cells to proliferate, each of the two epithelial compartments can function as a source of facultative stem cells for the other.
部分肝切除术后的肝脏再生是哺乳动物再生过程中唯一的一个例子，即当该过程完成时，器官/体重比恢复到原来的100%。肝脏重量根据身体需求进行调整，这表明存在一组复杂的控制点，即“肝脏稳态”。在阐明肝脏再生起始机制方面已经取得了很大进展。最近的研究集中在终止途径上，因为这些可能是肝脏稳态的潜在控制因素，消除这些因素可能与肝脏肿瘤形成有关。当标准的再生过程因肝细胞或胆管上皮细胞增殖失败而受阻时，两个上皮区室中的每一个都可以作为另一个区室的兼性干细胞来源。
