In vivo monitoring of liver oxidative stress defences by magnetic resonance measurements of glutathione turnover

肝病很常见，每年在英国导致超过10,000人死亡。肝病通常是随着肝脏健康状况的逐渐下降而发生的，脂肪肝、纤维化和肝硬化会导致肝功能衰竭。这种下降的部分原因包括？氧化压力?。当肝脏被药物、酒精、病毒感染和脂肪肝引起的破坏性化学物质淹没时，就会出现这种压力。我们正在开发新的方法来测量肝脏氧化应激的程度，以及测量肝脏应对这种应激的能力。我们用核磁共振扫描仪来测量肝脏吗？产生谷胱甘肽，这是一种天然抗氧化剂，肝脏用它来保护自己免受引起氧化应激的化学物质的侵害。这能让我们测量肝脏吗？利用核磁共振扫描仪，而不是用针头取肝活检样本，以非侵入性的方式检测肝脏的防御机制。我们的研究将描述肝脏谷胱甘肽合成速率在肝脏氧化应激发生时的变化，并证明这些测量可以在人体中以稳健和安全的方式进行。因此，我们正在开发新的方法来监测氧化应激在肝脏疾病进展中的作用。如果成功，这些方法可能在未来的肝脏疾病研究项目中发挥作用，我们希望使用这些技术来评估治疗策略的影响，如抗氧化剂补充治疗或饮食和生活方式的改变。

Liver disease is common, causing over 10,000 deaths in the UK per year. Liver disease often occurs as a gradual decline in liver health, with fatty liver, fibrosis and cirrhosis leading towards liver failure. Part of this decline involves ?oxidative stress?. This stress occurs when the liver is overwhelmed by damaging chemical species caused by drugs, alcohol, viral infection and the effects of having a fatty liver.We are developing new ways of measuring the degree of oxidative stress in the liver, and of measuring how well the liver copes with this stress. We use MRI scanners to measure the liver?s production of glutathione, which is a natural antioxidant that the liver uses for protection against the chemicals that cause oxidative stress. This allows us to gauge the liver?s defence mechanisms in a non-invasive way, using an MRI scanner instead of taking a liver biopsy sample with a needle.Our studies will characterise how liver glutathione synthesis rate changes when liver oxidative stress occurs, and demonstrates that these measurements can be made in people in a robust and safe manner. Thus we are developing new methods to monitor the role that oxidative stress plays in progression of liver disease. If successful, these methods may play a role in future liver disease research projects, and we hope to use these techniques to assess the impact of therapeutic strategies such as antioxidant supplementation treatments or diet and lifestyle changes.