Liver tissue engineering using functional marine biomaterials

The design of natural polymer-based artificial ECMs for liver tissue engineering is very important because the liver plays important roles in our body, such as metabolism, storage, and synthesis and release of carbohydrates, vitamins, lipids, proteins, and detoxification, inactivation of endogenous and exogenous substances and activation of precursor molecules (Zakim and Boyer, 1990). Also, hepatocytes as the parenchymal cells among liver cells are anchorage-dependent cells and the hepatocytes lose their fiver-specific functions and viability without an optimal artificial ECM (Chan et al., 2004). 

2 Mechanism of specific interaction between gaiactose moiety of the gaiactose-carrying biomateriais and ASGPR on the hepatocytes 

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Liver tissue engineering using functional marine biomaterials... 

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