According to Ram Mahato and his colleagues, liver fibrosis is a build-up of scar tissue in the liver. This chronic liver damage caused by hepatitis, consumption of alcohol, toxins and other factors. The liver becomes so severely damaged since advanced fibrosis can lead to cirrhosis which caused the patients to have transplant. There is no effective treatment although patients urgently need new medications. However, scientists believe that this disease emerges from protein called TGF-beta 1 which triggers liver inflammation and blocking this protein may become the treatment.
Recently, according to ScienceDaily dated June 3 2009, scientists in Tennessee have found a technique that “silences”, or turn off genes becomes a potential new treatment for liver fibrosis patients. The researches designed 10 chemically synthesized substances, siRNAs with the ability to block the TFG-beta 1 gene in the liver. Then, they tested this experiment in the rat liver cells. They found that ‘gene silencers’ decreased the level of type 1 collagen and the trigger liver inflammation to almost 50%. Thus, they suggest that gene silencing can be an effective treatment to the liver fibrosis treatment.
Resource:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090601110517.htm
by:are-in-42101680
