AUTHOR=Syanda Adam M. , Kringstad Vera I. , Blackford Samuel J. I. , Kjesbu Joachim S. , Ng Soon Seng , Ma Liang , Xiao Fang , Coron Abba E. , Rokstad Anne Mari A. , Modi Sunil , Rashid S. Tamir , Strand Berit Løkensgard TITLE=Sulfated Alginate Reduces Pericapsular Fibrotic Overgrowth on Encapsulated cGMP-Compliant hPSC-Hepatocytes in Mice JOURNAL=Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology VOLUME=9 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/bioengineering-and-biotechnology/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2021.816542 DOI=10.3389/fbioe.2021.816542 ISSN=2296-4185 ABSTRACT=

Intra-peritoneal placement of alginate encapsulated human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived hepatocytes (hPSC-Heps) represents a potential new bridging therapy for acute liver failure. One of the rate-limiting steps that needs to be overcome to make such a procedure more efficacious and safer is to reduce the accumulation of fibrotic tissue around the encapsulated cells to allow the free passage of relevant molecules in and out for metabolism. Novel chemical compositions of alginate afford the possibility of achieving this aim. We accordingly used sulfated alginate and demonstrated that this material reduced fibrotic overgrowth whilst not impeding the process of encapsulation nor cell function. Cumulatively, this suggests sulfated alginate could be a more suitable material to encapsulate hPSC-hepatocyte prior to human use.