Liver sinusoid

A liver sinusoid is a type of sinusoidal blood vessel (with fenestrated, discontinuous endothelium) that serves as a location for mixing of the oxygen-rich blood from the hepatic artery and the nutrient-rich blood from the portal vein.

Hepatocytes are separated from the sinusoids by the space of Disse. Kupffer cells are located inside the sinusoids and can take up and destroy foreign material such as bacteria.

Endothelium

The sinusoidal endothelial cells are cultured for a variety of research purposes. The utility of these cells are of particular interest. One problem to overcome is the reversing of cellular differentiation that has made these cells highly specialized phenotypically in vitro.