Nature Communications (Feb 2018)

3D microfluidic liver cultures as a physiological preclinical tool for hepatitis B virus infection

  • A. M. Ortega-Prieto,
  • J. K. Skelton,
  • S. N. Wai,
  • E. Large,
  • M. Lussignol,
  • G. Vizcay-Barrena,
  • D. Hughes,
  • R. A. Fleck,
  • M. Thursz,
  • M. T. Catanese,
  • M. Dorner

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-02969-8
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 1
pp. 1 – 15

Abstract

Read online

Long-term in vitro models for hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection are important to understand this infection, but are lacking. Here the authors develop a microfluidic primary human hepatocyte organoid culture system that can be maintained over 40 days and recapitulates all of the steps of the HBV life cycle.