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)

We have previously reported that monocyte aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH) activity is depressed in patients with liver disease and is decreased more in cirrhosis than in early stage liver disease. To determine if monocyte AHH activity reflects liver AHH activity, we studied an animal model of cirrhosis, i.e., yellow phosphorus induced cirrhosis in the pig. AHH activity was detectable in monocytes isolated from peripheral blood of normal pigs (0.32 +/- 0.13 nmol.mg-1 P.h-1, n = 11) and was comparable to the level of AHH activity in hepatic Kupffer cells isolated from wedge or needle biopsies of livers of normal pigs (0.38 +/- 0.21, n = 7). The AHH level in pig Kupffer cells was approximately 10% of the AHH level in hepatocytes and microsomes. To induce liver disease, pigs were administered yellow phosphorus (0.6 mg/kg) 5 days per week for 16 weeks. At 4 weeks of treatment, monocyte AHH activity was not different from control and liver histology was normal. Depression of monocyte AHH activity was evident at 8 weeks of treatment when liver fibrosis was seen histologically. At 12 weeks of treatment when histology revealed extensive liver fibrosis and collagen levels were elevated, the level of monocyte AHH activity was decreased 67% compared with controls. Similar changes were observed at 12 weeks in Kupffer cell AHH activity (86% decrease) and hepatocyte AHH activity (70% decrease) compared with controls. These results suggest that monocyte AHH activity reflects liver AHH activity and may be a good indicator of change in liver enzyme function in liver disease in the pig model of cirrhosis.
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PMID:Monocyte aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH) activity mimics Kupffer cell and hepatocyte AHH activity in an animal model of liver disease. 180 52

The present study examined the effects of (1-[(2-thiazolin-2-yl)amino]-acetyl-4-(1,3-dithiol-2-ylidene)-2,3, 4,5- tetrahydro-1H-1-benzazepin-3,5-dione hydrochloride (KF-14363) on liver fibrosis in rats with chronic liver injury induced by carbon tetrachloride (CCl4). Liver injury in male rats was induced by repeated administration of CCl4 at 0.5 ml/kg twice a week. The progression of liver fibrosis was checked in the 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th weeks using the relative amount of hepatic 4-hydroxy proline (4-hyp) to total proteine as an index of hepatic collagen. The relative amount of hepatic 4-hyp in these rats exceeded significantly that in rats not administered CCl4 by the 4th week. This progressed in proportion to the duration of CCl4 administration. In groups concurrently administered KF-14363 at 30 and 100 mg/kg/d from the 5th or 8th week of the CCl4 administration, the relative amount of hepatic 4-hyp was found to be lower in the 10th week than at the start of the KF-14363 administration. The inhibition of liver fibrosis was also observed histopathologically. The concurrently co-administration with CCl4 or KF-14363 at 30 and 100 mg/kg for 2 or 5 weeks inhibited the increases in serum transaminases and alkaline phosphatase induced by CCl4. The results show that KF-14363 inhibits liver fibrosis in a dose dependent fashion in rats with progressive liver injury.
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PMID:Effects of KF-14363 on liver fibrosis in rats with chronic liver injury induced by carbon tetrachloride. 181 77

Fifty CFI female mice were experimentally infected with schistosomiasis mansoni (50 cercariae per mouse). This study was designed to follow the stages of structural changes that may take place in the liver of patients infected by this parasite. Histological examination of liver tissue samples were carried out weekly for ten weeks after infection with schistosomiasis mansoni cercariae. The present study suggests that the development of hepatic schistosomiasis mansoni in mice is biphasis with a first or granulomatous phase in which the morphological changes are mild and a second aggressive fibrotic phase, when hepatic collagen synthesis increases rapidly and leads to fibrotic morphological changes that are characteristic of this infection. Gross and microscopic portal fibrosis and portal vascular lesions resembled those in hepatosplenic schistosomiasis in man. The rapid production of severe hepatic fibrosis without the use of hepatotoxic compound makes this model of interest for the study of liver fibrosis and its therapy.
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PMID:Sequential observation of pathomorphological alterations in liver of experimental murine schistosomiasis mansoni. 181 75

Collagen glucosyltransferase activity (EC 2.4.1.66) was quantified in experimentally-induced liver carcinoma, murine schistosomiasis mansoni-induced liver fibrosis and compared to the level of enzyme activity in control liver samples. Enzyme activity in hepatoma and fibrotic tissues were 12 and 5 times the mean level of enzyme activity in the control liver tissue respectively. The level of enzyme activity in the hepatoma tissue was two times the level of enzyme activity found in the fibrotic tissue. The findings in this study provide the basis for the highly elevated serum values of this intracellular enzyme in experimentally-induced primary hepatocellular carcinoma or in human primary hepatoma. The enzyme activity may be increased in primary liver carcinoma to compensate for an increased rate of collagen synthesis.
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PMID:Liver collagen glucosyltransferase in experimental primary liver carcinoma. 183 51

Serum levels of type IV collagen and hepatic type IV collagenase activity, as markers for formation and degradation respectively of basement membrane collagen (type IV collagen) in liver, were measured in patients with various alcoholic liver diseases. Development of alcoholic liver fibrosis seems to be due to both increased formation and decreased degradation of basement membrane collagen. Both measurements of type IV collagenase activity and serum level of type IV collagen were assumed to be useful to predict irreversible state of hepatic fibrosis.
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PMID:Formation and degradation of basement membrane collagen. 184 65

To examine the synthesis of hepatic collagen in patients with alcoholic and nonalcoholic liver disease, liver biopsy specimens were incubated in vitro with 14C-proline, and the radioactivity of the newly synthesized protein-bound 14C-hydroxyproline was measured. Mean hepatic collagen synthesis was 0.82 +/- 0.19 pmole of 14C-hydroxyproline/g liver/2 h in control subjects without histological liver fibrosis. Hepatic collagen synthesis was increased in patients with alcoholic and nonalcoholic liver diseases, especially in those with alcoholic fibrosis, alcoholic cirrhosis and chronic active hepatitis. The raised collagen synthesis in alcoholic liver disease rapidly decreased after withdrawal of alcohol. When alcoholic liver disease were compared with nonalcoholic liver disease, there was no significant difference in hepatic collagen synthesis.
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PMID:Hepatic collagen synthesis in patients with alcoholic and nonalcoholic liver disease. 191 55

Incorporation rates of 14C-proline into collagen hydroxyproline in cultured Ito cells and hepatocytes isolated from chronically alcohol-treated rats were studied in order to clarify the role of Ito cells in the development of alcoholic liver fibrosis pathogenesis. In the cultured Ito cells isolated from alcohol-treated rats, prolyl hydroxylase activity significantly increased. Total collagen synthesis tended to increase in the alcohol group, and the increase in intracellular intact collagen was statistically significant. More than half of the 14C-radioactivity in intact collagen in cultured Ito cells from control rats was found in collagen other than types I and III collagen (mainly type IV collagen). In Ito cells from alcohol-treated rats, synthesis of collagen other than type I and III significantly increased and type I collagen synthesis tended to be decreased. No significant difference was found in collagen synthesis between the cultured hepatocytes from alcoholic and control rats. These results suggest that chronic alcohol consumption stimulates collagen synthesis in Ito cells, especially type IV collagen. This stimulation of Ito cells may play a role in the development of alcoholic liver fibrosis.
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PMID:Collagen synthesis by cultured rat liver cells isolated from chronically alcohol-treated rats. 196 91

In mammals, liver perisinusoidal stellate cells play an important role as a main store of body retinol (vitamin A). This fat-soluble vitamin is essential for vision, and regulates differentiation and growth of many cell types during embryonal development as well as in adult tissues. Thus, many cell types require a continuous supply of retinol. The storage of retinol (as retinyl esters) in stellate cells ascertains ample access of retinol to such cells also during periods with a low dietary intake. In lower vertebrates such as fish, vitamin A-storing stellate cells are found not only in the hepatic lobule, but also in the connective tissues of organs like intestine, kidney, ovaries, testes, and gills. Extrahepatic vitamin A-storing stellate cells are found in higher vertebrates when excessive doses of vitamin A are administered. It is not clear at present whether these cells also play a role in retinol metabolism under normal conditions. Stellate cells proliferate in a fibrotic liver, and they have been found to synthesize connective tissue compounds such as collagen. It was recently demonstrated that stellate cells are the principal cellular source of collagen and other extracellular substances in normal as well as fibrotic livers. Therefore, stellate cells, which seem to be a specialized type of pericyte, have a central role in the pathological changes observed during the development of liver fibrosis.
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PMID:Perisinusoidal stellate cells of the liver: important roles in retinol metabolism and fibrosis. 200 86

8 rabbits were infected percutaneously with the cercariae of Schistosoma japonicum. After hepatic fibrosis had developed in these rabbits 4 months after infection, 4 out of the 8 infected rabbits were given colchicine orally at a dosage of 40 micrograms/kg per day for 7 weeks. Another uninfected rabbits were used as controls. The therapeutic effects of colchicine on hepatic fibrosis were studied by transmission electron microscopy and morphometry, in which the area of collagen microfibrils in the space of disse and liver cells was measured. The results showed that colchicine relieved ultrastructural injury of liver cells and reduced the number of active fibroblasts and collagen microfibrils. The area of collagen microfibrils measured in the liver of the infected rabbits and colchicine-treated rabbits accounted for 42.5% and 0.2%, respectively (P less than 0.01), suggesting that colchicine has therapeutic effect against schistosomal liver fibrosis.
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PMID:[Ultrastructural studies on effects of colchicine in treating hepatic fibrosis of schistosomiasis rabbits]. 211 13

Schistosomal egg granulomas spontaneously secrete fibrogenic factors, suggesting that there exists a molecular link between granulomatous inflammation and hepatic fibrosis in schistosomiasis. To further assess this possibility, we compared elaboration of fibrogenic factors by egg granulomas isolated from Schistosoma mansoni-infected euthymic mice that develop substantial liver fibrosis, with those elaborated by similarly infected congenitally athymic mice that develop minimal fibrosis. Conditioned medium from cultures of granulomas from euthymic mice stimulated fibroblast proliferation, chemotaxis, and synthesis of collagen, collagenase, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases, and hyaluronate, whereas those prepared from cultures of granulomas isolated from athymic mice were relatively or absolutely deficient in such activities. These observations provide a correlation between the presence of fibrosis in vivo and the production of fibrogenic factors and reinforce our hypothesis that granuloma-derived fibrogenic factors play a role in the pathogenesis of liver fibrosis in schistosomiasis. Furthermore, the results of this study suggest a central role of T lymphocytes in the fibrogenic process.
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PMID:Fibroblast stimulation in schistosomiasis. IX. Schistosomal egg granulomas from congenitally athymic mice are deficient in production of fibrogenic factors. 215 67


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