Geneticists have managed to create laboratory mice, the liver of which is fully human. Chemically and biologically, the new mouse liver is 100% human.
According to doctors, she is completely susceptible to various infections, such as hepatitis B and C, and also responds in a given way to human drugs. The creation of such organs, say experts, opens the way to new research and test methods.
Many infectious diseases are unique to each species, meaning they are adapted for specific organisms and do not work for others. For example, only humans and chimpanzees are susceptible to hepatitis B and C, making it difficult to test new drugs on real biological samples.
Scientists usually simply grew liver cells in a test tube and experimented with them, but this method is not suitable for liver cells called hepatocytes. “Human hepatocytes are nearly impossible to make to work unless they have been grown and maintained in their natural environment,” said study author Inder Verma, professor at the Salk Institute's Genetics Laboratory in California.
In a series of tests, the scientists simply replaced murine hepatocytes with human ones, creating chimeric mice capable of reproducing human hepatocytes using gene manipulation. According to the authors of the method, the pseudo-human liver in practice has undergone an almost complete transformation. Studies have shown that the chemical composition of the liver of normal and chimera mice differed by 95%.
Nevertheless, the scientists managed to achieve the main thing - the new liver turned out to be susceptible to hepatitis B and C, and also began to respond to human medications "like a human."