IRDiRC Funders Constituent Committee (FCC) Member Fondazione Telethon is pleased to announce a new discovery from San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (SR-Tiget), which reveals the key liver cells driving organ growth and advancing pediatric gene therapy.
Published in the Journal of Hepatology, the study reveals that a minority of liver cells in newborns are responsible for generating most of the adult liver. To reach these results, researchers combined some of the most advanced techniques in the field, including single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, clonal tracing and mathematical modeling that allowed them not only to identify the clonogenic hepatocytes but also to understand the signals and microenvironments that regulate their activity.
The team showed how understanding the way hepatocytes grow and mature early in life remains crucial to have better strategies that aim to correct inherited diseases directly inside the liver, as it is the case for gene transfer or genome editing.
More information: https://www.fondazionetelethon.it/en/stories-and-news/news/from-research/how-newborn-liver-cells-shape-growth-and-future-treatments/