A team of scientists has managed to reveal – in mice – the mechanism that activates only minutes after acute damage in the liver, a finding that could benefit patients with severe and chronic liver damage and even those who expect a transplant.
He has achieved scientists from the National Oncological Research Center (CNIO) of Spain when verifying how supplementation with an amion acid (glutamate) could favor the regeneration of the liver, and today they publish the results of their work in the journal Nature.
The liver is a vital organ, indispensable in digestion, metabolism and the elimination of toxins, and has a unique skill, regeneration, which allows it to replace liver cells damaged by the toxic that they themselves eliminate, has detailed the CNI in a press release released today.
But the liver stops regenerating if there are diseases with chronic liver damage -as in cirrhosis -has pointed out this research center that has recalled that they are increasingly prevalent pathologies, associated with bad dietary habits and alcohol consumption.
An unknown mechanism so far
Learning to activate liver regeneration is therefore a priority to improve all the treatment of patients with severe liver damage and also those who have been removed part of the organ to eliminate a tumor.
Researchers have discovered in animal models an unknown liver regeneration mechanism so far; It is a process that is activated very fast, just minutes after the acute damage in the liver occurs, and in it the gutamate amino acid plays a key role.
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Scientists reveal key to favoring liver regeneration after acute damage
The authors have written in Nature magazine that, in the light of their results, nutritional supplementation with glutamate can favor the regeneration of the liver and benefit patients with severe and chronic liver damage; For example, those in recovery after a hepatectomy (the removal of a part or the entire liver), to stimulate liver growth, or even those who expect a transplant.
According to Nabil Djouder, head of the group of growth factors, nutrients and cancer of the CNIO and one of the authors of the study, a diet and a unhealthy lifestyle can affect the regeneration of the liver, and has valued that these results describe a fundamental and universal mechanism that allows the liver to regenerate after acute damage.
The current discovery is novel, since it describes a communication between two different organs, the liver and bone marrow, involving the immune system, and shows how both are interconnected by glutamate.
After acute liver damage, liver cells produce glutamate and pour it into the bloodstream; Glutamate reaches the blood to bone marrow -within the bones -where it activates a type of immune system cells (monocytes).
The experiments have been carried out in animal models, but their results have been proven with bioinformatic tools, using mice and humans databases.
According to Djouder, in the future it could simply be recommended glutamate supplementation in the diet after liver removal, and also to reduce the damage to the liver caused by cirrhosis, frequent in patients with poor diet or unhealthy lifestyle or in other serious liver diseases.
This study has been funded with public funds from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the ‘Research Challenges’ program, and deprived of the BBVA Foundation and the Spanish Association against Cancer (AECC).
With EFE information.
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