Isolation of Small Hepatocyte-Like Progenitor Cells from Retrorsine/Partial Hepatectomy Rat Livers by Laser Microdissection.

Small hepatocyte-like progenitor cells (SHPCs) are known as liver stem/progenitor cells (LSPCs). SHPCs transiently appear and form clusters in rat livers treated with retrorsine (Ret) and a 70% partial hepatectomy (PH). The Ret/PH model has been used widely to analyze the effectiveness of cell transplantation and the mechanisms of LSPC proliferation. Laser microdissection (LMD) is a powerful tool that can excise and collect specific areas of cells from a tissue slice with a laser under a microscope. These cells exhibiting morphological alterations different from the surrounding cells may be analyzed by gene expression profiling. Specific markers of SHPCs have not yet been identified, in part, because it is difficult to isolate SHPCs from the liver using fluorescence or magnetic-activated cell sorting. To examine the underlying mechanism for SHPC growth, we established comprehensive gene expression profiles for SHPCs captured from liver sections using LMD. In this chapter, we introduce a method to isolate SHPCs from liver tissue sections using LMD for gene expression analysis.