2025, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (8): 1684-1692

Potential application of liver organoids in liver disease models and transplantation therapy

Yuan Weibo1, 2, 3, Liu Chan1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Yu Limei1, 2, 3, 4, 5   

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Liver organoids are of great significance to elucidate the exact pathological mechanism of liver diseases and the treatment of liver diseases.
OBJECTIVE: To summarize the basic research in this field at home and abroad, review the important research progress in the construction of liver organoids, disease modeling and transplantation therapy, and discuss the application prospect of combined tissue engineering technology of liver organoids.
METHODS: The relevant articles included in PubMed and CNKI databases were searched. The English and Chinese search terms were “liver, organoids, liver diseases.” The main search time was from April 2018 to April 2024. Duplicate literature was excluded by manual reading. Finally, 94 articles were included for review and analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The seed cells constructed by liver organoids are mainly concentrated in adult cells and pluripotent stem cells, which promote the generation of organoids by assisting various cytokines to participate in signal guidance and providing 3D microenvironment by extracellular matrix. However, the overall maturity is not high, which is expected to improve this problem by combining tissue engineering technology. In vitro disease modeling is mainly studied in the field of simple diseases and single-gene genetic diseases. Organoids highly retain patient genetic characteristics, and it is expected to simulate more complex liver diseases and clarify deeper pathological mechanisms by combining CRISPR-Cas9 gene correction and other emerging technologies. In vivo transplantation treatment, liver organoids can be safely and effectively implanted, showing amazing liver function replacement potential, tissue regeneration ability, and may also be combined with other tissue engineering materials to achieve therapeutic purposes.
Key words: liver organoids, stem cell, seed cell, liver disease, disease modeling, in vivo transplantation, review