Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0239946 (liver fibrosis)
 8,268 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The immunoreactive serum concentrations of the basement membrane glycoprotein laminin, including its split product (pepsin-resistant fragment P1), and of the aminoterminal propeptide of type III procollagen, were measured in liver outflow (hepatic vein) and in liver-distal venous (renal vein) and arterial (femoral artery) regions in liver cirrhotic and fibrotic patients (n = 40). In the majority of patients with liver fibrosis and cirrhosis (0.52 to 0.69) the relatively highest concentrations of laminin (2.09 U/ml, p less than 0.05) and of procollagen propeptide (28.5 ng/ml, p less than 0.001) were found in the hepatic vein. No significant correlations were observed between the concentrations of the two biomatrix proteins in either region of the circulation, but a highly positive statistical correlation (r = 0.9425) was found between the level of laminin in the hepatic vein of cirrhotic subjects and portal venous pressure. The respective correlations were lower for laminin measured in the renal vein and the femoral artery. The concentration of procollagen propeptide was statistically not related to the portal venous pressure.
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PMID:Serum concentrations of N-terminal propeptide of type III procollagen and laminin in the outflow of fibrotic livers compared with liver-distal regions. 380 73

The first part of this review describes the chemistry, the occurrence and the metabolism of extracellular connective tissue components in the liver. The normal liver contains typical connective tissue proteins (collagens, structural glycoproteins and proteoglycans) not only in vessel walls, perivascular areas and in the capsule, but they occur also in small amounts in the parenchyma, mainly in the space of Disse along the sinusoidal walls. The "interstitial" collagens type I and III represent the major amount of collagen in the normal as well as in fibrotic liver, showing a relative increase of type III in fibrosis. Basement membrane collagens type IV and V as well as the cysteine-rich collagenous components "7 S collagen" and "short chain collagen" have been shown to occur in extracts prepared after limited pepsin digestion. In the normal liver, basement membrane collagen can hardly be detected within the parenchyma by immunofluorescence microscopy; increased occurrence, however, can be shown along the sinusoids even in early stages of chronic liver diseases. The glycoprotein fibronectin was shown to be distributed very similarly to collagens type I and III, whereas the basement membrane specific glycoprotein laminin is restricted to vessel walls and the epithelial layer of bile ductuli in the normal liver but is also found in the parenchyma in fibrosis. Occurrence of proteoglycans is increased in fibrosis: a change in the composition of glycosaminoglycans from mainly heparan sulfate in the normal to dermatan- and chondroitin sulfate in the fibrotic liver was observed. It is not yet clear which cell type is mainly responsible for increased connective tissue synthesis in fibrosis. The occurrence of cells resembling smooth muscle cells ("myofibroblasts") in connective tissue septa of fibrotic livers and the fact that similar cells which actively synthesize collagen grow from explants of fibrotic livers may indicate the significance of this cell type in the process of liver fibrosis.
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PMID:Connective tissue components of the normal and fibrotic liver. I. Structure, local distribution and metabolism of connective tissue components in the normal liver and changes in chronic liver diseases. 702 93

Laminin is a major basement membrane-associated, non-collagenous glycoprotein of the extracellular matrix and is deposited in the space of Disse during sinusoidal capillarisation. Laminin P1, a pepsin-resistant fragment originating from the central portion of the cross-shaped laminin molecule, is detectable in serum and has been related to liver fibrosis and portal hypertension. In this study we investigated the behaviour of serum laminin P1, measured by radioimmunoassay, in a homogeneous group of 95 patients suffering from chronic viral hepatitis, types C or B, in order to determine the relationships between serum laminin P1 and each of the main histological aspects of the disease process (i.e. portal-periportal activity, lobular activity and fibrosis), which were assigned numerical scores. Moreover, we computed, at several cut-off levels, the sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values of laminin P1 in detecting both necroinflammatory activity and fibrosis in the liver. The results show that serum laminin P1 levels parallel the severity of liver disease, the highest laminin concentrations being observed in cirrhotic patients. They suggest also that serum laminin P1 should be considered a marker of the liver disease process as a whole, rather than a marker exclusively linked to fibrosis. Nevertheless, the usefulness of serum laminin P1 measurement, as investigated in this study, seems too limited to be recommended for routine clinical practice.
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PMID:Serum laminin P1 in chronic viral hepatitis: correlations with liver histological activity and diagnostic value. 885 64

Laminin P1 (pepsin-resistant fragment of laminin) and aminoterminal peptide of type III procollagen are measurable in serum and are now considered useful serum markers of fibrogenesis and inflammation in chronic liver diseases. However, very few studies thus far have focused on assessing the diagnostic value of these markers in detecting fibrosis and necro-inflammatory activity in chronically diseased liver. The aim of the present study was therefore to investigate the correlations of laminin and type III procollagen with liver histology and to compare their diagnostic value in detecting the degree of liver fibrosis and necro-inflammatory activity in a homogeneous group of 99 patients suffering from chronic hepatitis C, and lacking other factors which can directly affect the serum levels of the two markers. Both these serum markers were measured by radioimmunoassay, employing commercially available kits. The three main aspects of liver pathology, i.e. portal-periportal activity, lobular activity and fibrosis, were histologically evaluated and semiquantitatively expressed by numerical scores. The results of this study show that laminin and type III procollagen were both positively correlated with the histological scores for portal-periportal activity and with those for fibrosis, whereas no significant correlation was observed between each of the two serum markers and the histological scores for lobular activity. The sensitivity and specificity of laminin and type III procollagen in detecting histological aspects of fibrosis and disease activity in liver, computed at various cut-off levels, showed overlapping trends for the two markers; however, the diagnostic value was in general rather low, whatever the cut-off considered. We therefore conclude that the 'static' measurement of both serum laminin and type III procollagen is of limited value for individual diagnosis of liver damage.
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PMID:Serum laminin and type III procollagen in chronic hepatitis C. Diagnostic value in the assessment of disease activity and fibrosis. 935 26