Liver regeneration--the best kept secret. A model of tissue injury response.

ABSTRACT

Liver regeneration (LR) is one of the most amazing tissue injury response. Given its therapeutic significance has been deeply studied in the last decades.LR is an extraordinary complex process, strictly regulated, which accomplishes the characteristics of the most evolutionary biologic systems (robustness) and explains the difficulties of reshaping it with therapeutic goals.TH reproduces the physiological tissue damage response pattern, with a first phase of priming of the hepatocytes-cell-cycle transition G0-G1­, and a second phase of proliferation ­cell-cycleS/M phases­ which ends with the liver mass recovering. This process has been related with the tissue injury response regulators as complement system, platelets, inflammatory cytokines(TNF-a, IL-1b, IL-6), growth factors (HGF, EGF, VGF) and anti-inflammatory factors (IL-10, TGF-b).Given its complexity and strict regulation, illustrates the unique alternative to liver failure is liver transplantation.The recent induced pluripotential cells (iPS) description and the mesenchymal stem cell (CD133+) plastic capability have aroused new prospects in the cellular therapy field. Those works have assured the cooperation between mesenchymal and epithelial cells. Herein, we review the physiologic mechanisms of liver regeneration.