Establishment and characterization of an immortalized human hepatocyte line for the development of bioartificial liver system

For further research and application of Bioartificial liver systems (BAL), active proliferation capacity and full hepatic functionality of the biomaterials is mandatory. However, there are still no suitable cell lines meeting the requirements for an ideal cell source in BAL development that makes it necessary to explore other sources. Here, we constructed a new cell line derived from well-differentiated hepatocellular carcinoma tissues designated NHBL2. Immunol staining showed that NHBL2 possessed the capacity of synthesizing albumin and CYP2E1 and quantitative analysis showed that the albumin synthesis ability of NHBL2 was comparable to C3A while urea production was highly abundant of NHBL2 compared with that of C3A. Using gene expression microarray analysis, we found that the expression levels of a set of genes encoding Phase I and Phase II metabolizing enzymes as well as many others related to common bioconversion and metabolic processes were significantly higher in NHBL2 cell line than that in C3A. Moreover, functional optimization assay in Matrigel showed obvious improvements of liver-related function level and a low malignance of this cell line. These findings indicated that NHBL2 possessed relatively attractive and full hepatic functionality that might be a potential cell line for BAL development.