Scientist from the University of California may have cracked the mystery around Liver disease with an experimental virus that can repair diseased livers by turning bad cells into good.
Holger Willenbring of the University of California, San Francisco, and his colleagues worked out a way to transform myofibroblasts into healthy hepatocytes using a cocktail of liver gene switches called transcription factors, according to a report by New Scientist.
The treatment increased the number of healthy liver cells in the mice, as well as reducing the collagen content of their livers by a third on average. “We think the combination of making more hepatocytes and reducing collagen is the most promising approach to treating liver fibrosis,” says Willenbring.
This development comes when increasing number of people around the globe are succumbing to liver failures and would be particularly welcome in Africa and in Nigeria where the disease has tripled in the past two decades.
Experts reckon liver disease accounted for 7.9% of medical admissions, with primary liver cancer and liver cirrhosis accounting for 44.3% and 20.4%, respectively in Nigeria. The main risk factors were alcohol consumption (52.1%), hepatitis B virus infection (49.4%), ingestion of herbs and roots (45.5%) and cigarette smoking (30.1%). The treatment could one day offer a lifeline to thousands of people with liver failure.
This new piece of research has encouraging and exciting implications for the future, Vanessa Hebditch, director of communications and policy at the British Liver Trust told New Scientist. “The vector used in these studies is one that has already been used in the treatment of other human diseases so this is a promising approach.”
“These are remarkable data,” says Amit Nathwani at University College London, who is using AAVs in potential treatments for a blood disorder called haemophilia B. “Liver fibrosis is a major clinical problem and if these data can be reproduced clinically, the National Health Service would save billions and patients would be given a new lease of life.”
Willenbring says that more work is needed to optimise the liver treatment, so it may be five years before it can be tried out in people.
Other treatments that regenerate livers are also in development, some rely on stem cells, others are aimed at building replacement organs from scratch.
Source: New Scientist
