NIH awards grant to UMass researcher for new liver model development

The National Institutes of Health National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases awarded a grant to researcher Kimberly D. Tremblay, PhD, associate professor, department of veterinary and animal sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, to develop a new model liver system using embryotic cells, according to a press release.

The grant, which totals $426,000 over 2 years, will be used by Tremblay to study extra-embryonic tissue, also known as the tissues that protect and nourish embryos until birth.

“I studied extra-embryonic tissue as a graduate student, a postdoctoral researcher and now in my own lab, so over time I've became an expert in the yolk sac and other extra-embryonic tissues,” Tremblay said in the release. “I’ve come to realize that these underappreciated tissues offer a much more readily available, simpler model for liver development research.”

Kimberly D. Tremblay

According to Tremblay, the yolk sac serves as a protective element for the embryo that carries out the same duties as the liver at later developmental stages. However, the yolk sac is on the outside which is more accessible compared with developing liver tissue. Tremblay stated the the yolk sac is “huge, offering many more cells that are more easily freed from the surrounding blood vessels.”

“Discussion of the yolk sac peppers the literature, but the yolk sac has been of no interest to most researchers, they just toss it. But in fact, almost every gene that is essential to early liver development is first essential in the yolk sac,” Tremblay said. “I hope to demonstrate that the yolk sac is far more valuable than many researchers had previously thought, and that it can act as a very useful proxy for studying the early liver.”

Tremblay and colleagues will study a particular gene known as Yin Yang 1 (YY1), which stimulates and inhibits certain growth processes. She and colleagues previously shown that when YY1 is knocked out in yolk sac cells, they lose their identity and cannot communicate with surrounding blood vessels, which results in the cells being unable to form properly, according to the release.

A mouse yolk sac will be used as the model for liver development. The researchers will use the developing mouse liver to test the function of any genes we pull out as candidates in the yolk sac, according to Tremblay.

“I believe we need to be taking a closer look at how [the yolk sac] can help us,” Tremblay said.