Liver undergoes profound regeneration usually after hepatic damage. It has been shown in recent study that two kinds of liver stem cells, which are mainly oval cells (OVCs) and small hepatocytes, are involved in the process of liver regeneration as they differentiated into premature liver cells. However, the origination of oval cells as well as its differentiation property is not quite understood. In this study, we isolated a novel potential liver progenitor cells, namely small round cells (SRCs). The cellular features of the cells such as morphological appearance, surface marker, growth curve, and differentiation induced by DMSO were analyzed. SRCs and OVCs were obtained by using discontinuous digestions and isopyknic centrifugation, respectively. With non-radioactive measurement of MTT, the cell growth was assayed. Meanwhile, SRCs were stained with antibodies against CK19, ALB and AFP antibody to characterize their tissue-specificities. The results showed that SRCs appeared in round-shaped, but irregular in size. The nuclei of SRCs were relative small with rich nucleolus visible. SRCs were semi-floated during primary culture. Even cultured in F12:DMEM (1:1) mixed-medium supplemented with 15% fetal calf serum, viability of the cells could merely be expanded over 7 days. SRCs were positively stained by CK19, ALB and AFP within initial 3 days. After DMSO stimulation, SRCs were not only morphologically changed into OVCs, but also expressed those markers identical to OVCs. It was suggested that SRCs could be considered as an potential candidate of liver progenitors which were related to OVCs.