Method of detecting and seperating of undifferentiated liver cellss using dlk

摘要

It was discovered that a membrane protein dlk (delta-like) is specifically expressed on the surfaces of fetal hepatic cells. We succeeded in purifying undifferentiated hepatic cells including hepatic stem cells to high purify from mouse fetal liver using an antibody to dlk protein. The obtained fetal hepatic cells included hepatic stem cells having bipotency. The present invention provides a marker molecule of hepatic cells, and a method for detecting undifferentiated hepatic cells utilizing this molecule. The present invention also provides a method for separating undifferentiated hepatic cells utilizing this marker molecule, and the undifferentiated hepatic cells separated by this method. By using the method of the present invention, hepatic stem cells may be purified simply to high concentration. The undifferentiated hepatic cells obtained by the present invention may be used for regenerative medicine and artificial liver. They may also be used for analyses of intercellular interactions, and for assay systems and screening systems for investigating drug metabolism as well as for searching drugs and anti-viral agents which control the drug metabolism or differentiation of hepatic cells.