Patent ID: 8062632

Claim:
A method for promoting and/or restoring liver function in an animal in need thereof comprising: preparing isolated hepatocytes, wherein the preparing step comprises: (a) culturing mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in a medium comprising hepatic growth factor (HU) to cause the MSCs to differentiate toward hepatocytes, wherein the MSCs are isolated from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood; (b) culturing cells from a) in a medium comprising HGF and oncostatin M (OSM) to facilitate the cell differentiation toward hepatocytes; and (c) culturing, cells from b) in a medium comprising OSM to cause the differentiated cells to mature into hepatocytes, and thereby producing isolated cells having morphological features of hepatocytes and the following characteristics: (i) antibody-detectable expression of albumin; (ii) Real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction-detectable expression of α-fetoprotein, HNF-1α, HNF-3β, HNF-4, HNF-6, α1-antitrypsin, alkaline phosphatase, tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase, tyrosine aminotransferase, cytochrome P450 family 2 subfamily E polypeptide 1, glutamine synthetase, and/or low density lipoprotein receptor; (iii) evidence of urea secretion; (iv) evidence of cytochrome p450 enzyme activity; (v) evidence of glycogen storage; and (vi) evidence of uptake of low density lipoprotein; and administering to the animal an effective amount of the isolated hepatocytes.