Application of follistatin to the resolution of liver fibrosis

肝纤维化或瘢痕形成是许多疾病的后果，最终导致广泛的损害，称为肝硬化。这是一个严重的健康问题，在澳大利亚和海外，每年在西方世界诊断出约18万名患者。肝硬化由许多原因引起，两个主要群体是感染肝炎和酗酒的患者。患有肝硬化的人患肝衰竭的风险大大增加，这需要肝移植，或者发展为肝癌，目前的治疗方法成功有限。我们一直在研究两种蛋白质，激活素和卵泡抑素，这两种蛋白质都是在肝脏中产生的。我们对激活素很感兴趣，因为它是人体控制细胞生长的机制之一，似乎也刺激了疤痕组织的发展。卵泡抑素是激活素的天然抑制物质。它阻断激活素的作用，有助于促进肝脏细胞生长。我们相信卵泡抑素在控制肝脏瘢痕形成方面也是有用的。这一过程将在肝硬化的动物模型中进行研究，希望卵泡抑素治疗能降低肝损伤的水平。如果成功，这将是重要的信息，使我们能够设计适用于这些肝脏疾病患者的治疗方法。在该项目的另一部分，我们将评估激活素和卵泡抑素是否可能是肝脏疾病的有用标志物。大多数患者需要肝活检来评估肝损伤的程度，简单的血液检查将是一个更容易，创伤更小，更便宜的选择。

Liver fibrosis or scarring is a consequence of a number of diseases, leading eventually to extensive damage known as cirrhosis. It is a significant health problem both here in Australia and overseas with around 180,000 patients diagnosed each year in the Western world. Cirrhosis arises from many causes, two major groups being patients who contract hepatitis and alcoholics. People with cirrhosis have a much increased risk of liver failure, which requires liver transplantation, or of developing liver cancer, for which current treatments have limited success. We have been studying two proteins, activin and follistatin, both of which are made in the liver. We are interested in activin because it is one of the body's mechanisms to control cell growth, and also seems to stimulate the development of scar tissue. Follistatin is the natural inhibitory substance for activin. It blocks the effects of activin and helps promote cell growth in the liver. We believe that follistatin may also be useful in controlling liver scarring. This process will be studied in animal models of cirrhosis, in the hope that follistatin treatment will reduce the level of liver damage. If successful, this would be important information that would enable us to design treatments applicable to human sufferers of these liver diseases. In another part of the project, we will assess whether activin and follistatin might be useful markers of liver disease. Most patients require a liver biopsy to assess the amount of liver damage, and a simple blood test would be a far easier, less traumatic and cheaper alternative.