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

肝病很常见，每年在英国造成1万多人死亡。肝脏疾病通常发生在肝脏健康状况逐渐下降的过程中，脂肪肝、纤维化和肝硬变导致肝功能衰竭。这种下降的部分原因与氧化应激有关。当药物、酒精、病毒感染和脂肪肝造成的破坏化学物质使肝脏不堪重负时，这种压力就会发生。我们正在开发新的方法来测量肝脏的氧化应激程度，并测量肝脏对这种压力的应对能力。我们使用核磁共振扫描仪来测量肝脏中谷胱甘肽的产生，谷胱甘肽是一种天然抗氧化剂，肝脏用来保护肝脏免受导致氧化应激的化学物质的伤害。这使我们能够使用核磁共振扫描仪而不是用针采集肝脏活检样本，以非侵入性的方式测量肝脏S的防御机制。我们的研究将描述当肝脏发生氧化应激时肝脏谷胱甘肽合成率的变化，并证明这些测量可以在人体内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病进展中所起的作用。如果成功，这些方法可能会在未来的肝病研究项目中发挥作用，我们希望利用这些技术来评估抗氧化剂补充治疗或改变饮食和生活方式等治疗策略的影响。

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.