Development of a new bioartificial liver module filled with porcine hepatocytes immobilized on non-woven fabric.

We developed a new bioartificial liver module, a non-woven fabric (NWF) module, which was filled with hepatocytes immobilized on non-woven polyester fabric, and compared its efficacy with a suspension culture vessel. Porcine hepatocytes were isolated from whole pig liver, which formed spheroids in a 1L suspension culture vessel. Some of these spheroids were allowed to construct a 50 mL NWF module by inoculation onto 12 sheets of disk-shaped non-woven fabric then stuffed into a 50 mL column. The remaining spheroids were transferred to a 100 mL spinner flask and placed in suspension. The 50 mL NWF module maintained a much better metabolic and synthetic function than the 100 mL suspension culture vessel throughout the study. Based on these results, we developed a 200 mL radial-flow-type NWF module. This module filled with single hepatocytes showed promising efficiency.