Application of follistatin to the resolution of liver fibrosis

卵泡抑素在解决肝纤维化中的应用

• 批准号: nhmrc : 236918
• 负责人: David Phillips
• 金额: $ 22.07万
• 依托单位: Monash University
• 依托单位国家: 澳大利亚
• 项目类别: NHMRC Development Grants
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 澳大利亚
• 起止时间: 2004-01-01 至 2005-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://researchdata.edu.au/application-follistatin-resolution-liver-fibrosis/76602
• 关键词: Application; follistatin; resolution; liver; fibrosis

Liver fibrosis or scarring is a consequence of a number of diseases, leading eventually to extensive damage known as cirrhosis. It is a significant health problem both here in Australia and overseas with around 180,000 patients diagnosed each year in the Western world. Cirrhosis arises from many causes, two major groups being patients who contract hepatitis and alcoholics. People with cirrhosis have a much increased risk of liver failure, which requires liver transplantation, or of developing liver cancer, for which current treatments have limited success. We have been studying two proteins, activin and follistatin, both of which are made in the liver. We are interested in activin because it is one of the body's mechanisms to control cell growth, and also seems to stimulate the development of scar tissue. Follistatin is the natural inhibitory substance for activin. It blocks the effects of activin and helps promote cell growth in the liver. We believe that follistatin may also be useful in controlling liver scarring. This process will be studied in animal models of cirrhosis, in the hope that follistatin treatment will reduce the level of liver damage. If successful, this would be important information that would enable us to design treatments applicable to human sufferers of these liver diseases. In another part of the project, we will assess whether activin and follistatin might be useful markers of liver disease. Most patients require a liver biopsy to assess the amount of liver damage, and a simple blood test would be a far easier, less traumatic and cheaper alternative.

肝纤维化或疤痕是多种疾病的结果，最终导致广泛的损害被称为肝硬化。这是澳大利亚和海外的重大健康问题，每年在西方世界被诊断出约18万名患者。肝硬化源于许多原因，两个主要组是肝炎和酗酒者的患者。肝硬化患者患肝衰竭的风险增加了很多，这需要肝移植或发展肝癌，而目前治疗的成功有限。我们一直在研究两种蛋白质，分别是激活素和卵泡蛋白，它们都是在肝脏中生产的。我们对激活素感兴趣，因为它是控制细胞生长的机制之一，并且似乎也刺激了疤痕组织的发育。 Follistatin是激活素的天然抑制物质。它阻断了激活素的作用，并有助于促进肝脏的细胞生长。我们认为，Follistatin也可能有助于控制肝脏疤痕。该过程将在肝硬化动物模型中进行研究，希望卵泡素治疗能够降低肝脏损害水平。如果成功的话，这将是重要的信息，使我们能够设计适用于这些肝病的人类患者的治疗方法。在该项目的另一部分中，我们将评估激活素和卵泡蛋白是否可能是肝病的有用标记。大多数患者需要进行肝活检来评估肝脏损伤的量，而简单的血液检查将是一种容易，更痛苦和更便宜的替代方法。