Although therefore none of the donor cells appeared to reside in large caliber vessels we did, however not analyze peripheral blood samples to confirm the presence of a circulating pool of donor derived cells. Moreover, although we recently reported that fusion of human donor UCB ALDHhiLin- cells and host murine hepatocytes could generate hybrid cells that only retained minimal amounts of human DNA in a NOD/SCID/MPSVII liver injury model,
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a highly malignant tumour of the digestive system. At present, its incidence is increasing in the world, and it is a major health concern worldwide because of its high morbidity and mortality, and a poor prognosis[1]. Potential curative treatments for HCC include hepatic resection, local ablative therapies, systemic treatment and liver transplantation[2].

Surgery is the most effective treatment, but unfortunately it is feasible in only 10-20% of patients, because a majority of HCC patients present at advanced or unresectable stages of the disease. Even for those eligible for surgical resection, the postoperative recurrence rate can be as high as 50% in 2 years. Chemotherapy could be an option as an alternative to improve the prognosis of HCC. In general, however patients with HCC do not respond well to chemotherapy, and get no survival benefits[3,4,5,6]. In addition, for some intermediate and terminal patients, the tolerable doses of chemotherapy are quite low, because of impaired liver function and other complications. As a result, systemic chemotherapy for HCC has been quite ineffective.

Moreover, there are very few therapeutic drugs against HCC. Therefore, finding a new method or drug which has better efficiency and lower toxicity will make a significant contribution to the treatment of HCC patients. Fortunately, traditional Chinese medicines have been shown to have a marked therapeutic effect against many types of cancers such as esophageal cancer[7], lung cancer[8], hepatocellular cancer[9] and colonic carcinoma[10]. They have gained wide acceptance as a safe, palliative and effective treatment in China because of their unique advantages[11,12]. Delisheng (DSL), as a multicomponent antitumour drug, is the first traditional Chinese drug which gains the second kind of new drug certificate in China. DSL is composed of radix ginseng, radix astragali, venenum bufonis and mylabris.

It has been reported that DSL has a strong inhibitory effect on the growth of some carcinoma cell lines[13,14]. Furthermore, it can also stimulate immunity, augment the effects of surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and improve the clinical symptoms and quality of life in patients with late-stage HCC[15,16]. Batimastat As DSL is attractive as a natural product for medicinal use, increasing attention is being paid to its scientific evaluation and its possible molecular mechanisms. In this study, we confirmed that DSL inhibits the proliferation of the HepG2 cell line.