Protocol for directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells toward a hepatocyte fate

Abstract

The directed differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) or human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) into hepatocytes could facilitate a rational study of the molecular mechanisms underlying human liver development as well as provide a renewable source of exogenous hepatocytes for drug toxicity testing and cell-based therapeutics. Moreover, if hepatocytes were produced from hiPSCs originating from patients with inborn errors of hepatic metabolism, such cells could be used for modeling liver disease. Here we present a step-wise protocol for efficiently and reproducibly inducing the differentiation of hepatocytes from human pluripotent stem cells under highly defined conditions.