Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)

Editor

Personal info

View

About

Terms

Javascript disabled

Please enable Javascript support in your browser to use this application.

Instructions on how to enable JavaScript on different browsers can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=23852.

[edit this page]

Shoda, J. et al.

Shoda, Oda, Suzuki, Sugiyama, Ito, Cohen, Feng, Kamiya, Nimura, Miyazaki, Kano, Matsuzaki, Tanaka,

Etiologic significance of defects in cholesterol, phospholipid, and bile acid metabolism in the liver of patients with intrahepatic calculi.

Intrahepatic calculi, highly prevalent in the Far East, including Japan, are characterized clinically by chronic proliferative cholangitis with frequent stone recurrences. Intrahepatic calculi consist of 2 groups, i.e., brown pigment stones, including a high cholesterol content, and cholesterol stones, with the former predominating. To gain insights into the pathogenesis of intrahepatic calculi, cholesterol and bile acid biosynthesis, as well as alterations in intracellular transport and/or canalicular secretion of phospholipid and bile acid were investigated in liver of patients with intrahepatic calculi. Enzyme activities of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase were increased (12.8 +/- 1.9 pmol/min/mg protein, mean +/- SEM vs. 5.5 +/- 0.4 in controls; P < .01) and cholesterol 7 alpha-hydroxylase activities were decreased (1.3 +/- 0.4 vs. 4.9 +/- 0.6; P < .01) in liver specimens of patients with brown pigment stones. In addition, messenger RNA (mRNA) levels of multidrug resistance P-glycoprotein 3 (MDR3 Pgp) and phosphatidylcholine transfer protein (PCTP) were markedly low in the liver specimens compared with the levels in specimens of control subjects, gallbladder stone patients, and patients with obstructive cholestasis. The protein levels and the immunohistochemical staining were decreased for MDR3 Pgp and PCTP in the liver. Consistently, the concentrations of phospholipid were markedly reduced in the hepatic bile from both affected and unaffected hepatic segments. In patients with intrahepatic calculi, biliary cholesterol supersaturation and the formation of cholesterol-rich brown pigment as well as cholesterol stones may be attributed to decreased hepatic transport and biliary secretion of phospholipids, in the setting of increased cholesterogenesis and decreased bile acid synthesis.[1]

References

Etiologic significance of defects in cholesterol, phospholipid, and bile acid metabolism in the liver of patients with intrahepatic calculi. Shoda, J., Oda, K., Suzuki, H., Sugiyama, Y., Ito, K., Cohen, D.E., Feng, L., Kamiya, J., Nimura, Y., Miyazaki, H., Kano, M., Matsuzaki, Y., Tanaka, N. Hepatology (2001) [Pubmed]

Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenes Open Access Licence Privacy Policy Terms of Use apsburg

The world's first wiki where authorship really matters (Nature Genetics, 2008). Due credit and reputation for authors. Imagine a global collaborative knowledge base for original thoughts. Search thousands of articles and collaborate with scientists around the globe.