Chicago, IL---October 2009--- In a recent study conducted by scientists at the University of Illinois, Chicago, a Synthecon, Inc. Rotary Cell Culture System^TM was used to construct a Huh 7 3-D cell culture model (human hepatoma-derived cell line) that was superior to conventional 2-D monolayers in terms of increased hepatocyte-specific gene expression and cellular polarity.

These 3D cultures were able to be infected by HCV, thus establishing that HCV entry into 3-D cultured Huh7 cells is not limited by polarity.  According to Dr. Susan Uprichard, “These more in vivo-like Huh7 cell cultures should prove useful for understanding the interplay between HCV and the cellular tight junction proteins that mediate infectious HCV entry into cells as well as how HCV affects other aspects of hepatocyte physiology.”

This study has demonstrated that the conditions of suspension and free-fall in the Rotary Cell Culture System^TM would allow hepatocytes to differentiate into 3-D aggregates which are structurally and functionally similar to their in-vivo counterparts; thereby representing a more physiologically relevant model to study HCV infection dynamics. Synthecon expects that this kind of a high- fidelity 3-D hepatocyte model would be very useful not only to viral hepatitis work, but also to various other fields of liver research that require such a model.