Chondrogenesis and Osteogenesis in Ectopic Transplants of the Fetal Liver in Mice

It was shown for the first time that when the livers of 14 day-old mouse fetuses was transplanted under the renal capsule or in the subcutaneous connective tissue of adult recipients, successive de novo formation of hyaline cartilage, bone, and hemopoietic foci took place. We propose that the liver mesenchyme, which preserves wider differentiation potencies in fetuses, is the cellular source of different types of mechanocytes: cartilaginous, bone, and reticular cells.