Hepatospheres: Three dimensional cell cultures resemble physiological conditions of the liver

Table 1 Characteristics of hepatospheres

Classifications	Ref.
Maintenance of physiological structure
Reassembling of liver cells in a physiological pattern, formation of ducts	[11,30]
Polarity, apical secretion and function of CD26	[30]
E-cadherin: Induction of spheroid formation	[3,33,34]
Integrin signaling	[33,38-40]
Elevated ECM production	[2,11,33,38-40,45]
Prolonged survival	[11,25]
Physiological expression pattern	[2,3]
Prolonged metabolic functions
Secretion of albumin	[2-4,11,21,24,25,27]
Tyrosine aminotransferase	[11]
Glutathione S transferase	[2]
Detoxification of urea	[3,4]
Biotransformation of xenobiotics (CYP)	[3,28,41,42]
Induction of stemness
AFP	[25,27]
CK19	[24,25]
Resembling of HCC
Angiogenesis	[26,45]