Immortalized Human Hepatocytes - HPV E6/E7, hTERT & MycT58A

Hepatocytes are the chief functional cells of the liver and perform an astonishing number of metabolic, endocrine, and secretory functions. They are cuboidal epithelial cells, and 70–85% of the liver volume is occupied by hepatocytes.
Human hepatocytes are routinely used by the pharmaceutical industry for study of hepatotoxicity, drug clearance, and drug-drug interactions. However, their use is largely impeded by inadequate supply, high cost, high variability, and limited in vitro proliferation capacity. Alternative cell sources include hepatic cell lines and stem-cell derived hepatocytes but most of them do not exhibit sufficient in vivo-like functionality to be of pharmaco-toxicological relevance. In this scenario, immortalized human hepatocytes serve as the optimal in vitro model of the human liver as they are more easily maintained, propagated in culture, and have less intrinsic variation. They provide a valuable tool for investigating metabolic pathways and hepatocyte proliferation-related events.