Product Overview

Stellate cells are a resident cell type of the liver primarily functioning to store retinoids. In response to liver damage, stellate cells rapidly lose the stored retinoids and differentiate into a proliferating fibroblast-like cell that begins depositing collagen matrix. This activity causes buildup of collagen in the liver eventually leading to cirrhosis.

Stellate cells can be isolated from liver tissue, enriched, and placed into cell culture. When placed into culture, stellate cells begin to immediately differentiate into the activated state, characterized by high expression of alpha-smooth muscle actin, a-SMA.

Human Stellate Cells are stellate cells enriched from human liver isolations and grown to >80% confluency and then cryopreserved.

Human Stellate Growth Medium (Catalog MST-500BK) is available to support optimal culture health and growth characteristics of stellate cells.

Characterization performed:

• Post-thaw plating to observe characteristic stellate morphology.
• Flow cytometry using antibodies for Vimentin Immunocytochemistry for a-SMA