肝脏是一个特殊的器官,不仅因为它独特的解剖结构和生理特征,而且它还具有无限的再生能力。在各种动物模型中,应用病毒或非病毒载体将肝细胞生长因子等基因转入体内,能增强肝再生能力,这就是肝脏基因转染技术在肝再生研究中的应用。未来的研究目标就是消除病毒载体的毒副作用和增加非病毒载体的转染率,这也是目前肝内基因转染技术中面临的主要难题;另一个研究目标就是用受体介导基因靶向肝转染,使转入基因在肝细胞中特异高表达。这些研究成果将有助于肝再生基因机制研究,以及将来临床基因治疗提供参考。
The liver is an especial organ,not only because of its unique anatomical and physiological characteristics,but also because of its unlimited regenerative capacity.Transfer of genetic materials,such as hepatocyte growth factor,using both viral and non-viral vectors has proved to be successful in augmenting liver regeneration in various animal models,which is the application of gene transfection in vivo to liver regeneration.Future research aims at eliminating toxicity of viral vectors and increasing transduction efficiency of non-viral vectors,which are the main drawbacks of these systems.Another goal of the research is to develop gene therapy that targets specific liver cells using receptors that are unique to and highly expressed by hepatocytes.The outcome of such investigations will make for the study of gene mechanism of liver regeneration and pave the way for future successful clinical gene therapy.