However, the immunopathogenesis of hepatitis in HBV-Tg mice are only observed by transfer of CTLs because of tolerance of adaptive immunity to viral antigens.[4] Thus, the limitation of HBV-Tg

mice to explore innate and adaptive immune response toward HBV prompts the development of non-Tg HBV mice model. Delivery of HBV genome into immunocompetent mice by adeno-associated virus, adenovirus or hydrodynamic-based transfection leads to efficient viral genes expression in liver. The host immune response against HBV is elicited by these transfer methods.[9, 13, 30] The analysis of immune effectors involved in HBV clearance is available by using gene-deficient mice. However, the procedure-induced immune responses may interfere the host immunity against HBV.

In addition, the routes of viral genome delivery are different from that STI571 order of natural infection. There are recent advances in the development of immunocompetent non-Tg mouse models for studying immune responses toward HBV in the mouse models. Delivery of HBV genome into mice liver by hydrodynamic injection leads to clearance of viral DNA template or persistence of HBV transgenes in mice depending on different mice strain. Several HBV mice models have also been generated in immune-competent mice background by different strategies of viral www.selleckchem.com/screening/kinase-inhibitor-library.html DNA transfer. Although there are still limitations in each of the recent developed immunocompetent non-Tg mouse animal

model see more to mimic the nature course of chronic HBV infection in human, these mouse animal models for HBV infection start providing new insights on the mechanisms of HBV clearance and persistence. We thank the Department of Medical Research and core laboratory of National Taiwan University Hospital for facility support. This work was supported by grants from the National Science Council, Taiwan (NSC100-2321-B-002-028 and NSC101-2321-B-002-008). The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. “
“Human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are a potent source for unlimited production of hepatocytes and hepatocyte-like cells that may replace primary human hepatocytes in a variety of fields including liver cell therapy, liver tissue engineering, manufacturing bioartificial liver, modeling inherited and chronic liver diseases, drug screening and toxicity testing. Human ESCs are able to spontaneously form embryoid bodies, which then spontaneously differentiate to various tissue-specific cell lineages containing a total of 10–30% albumin-producing hepatocytes and hepatocyte-like cells. Enrichment of embryoid bodies with the definitive endoderm, from which hepatocytes arise, yields increasing the final ratio of hepatocyte population up by 50–65%.