Hepatic Stellate Cells

Abstract

Carl Kupffer, by the use of a gold chloride staining method, detected in mammalian livers a population of stellate-shaped cells that were located perisinusoidally, always attached to the sinusoidal capillaries and also to the parenchymal cells (Kupffer 1876, cited by Wake 1980). Although originally Kupffer thought that these cells belonged to perivascular cells of connective tissue, after 20 years he changed his mind and suggested that the cells were a special kind of phagocytic endothelial cells (see discussion by Wake 1980). The cells he described, however, appear to be the perisinusoids cells, which express quite different functions than liver macrophages (Wake 1971; Wake et al. 1989). These cells had been rediscovered after almost 80 years and named Ito cells after one of the persons who described them (Ito and Nemoto 1952). Ito cells are known by a variety of synonyms (vitamin A-storing cells, lipocytes, fat-storing cells, liver-specific pericytes, perisinusoids cells) reflecting their functions; however, the term “hepatic stellate cells” (HSC) has been recently most often used.