Host Regulators of Liver Fibrosis During Human Schistosomiasis
Fibrosis is the formation and deposition of fibrous connective tissue in an organ or tissue in response to stress or damage. Although fibrosis might originally help repair damaged tissue, the uncontrolled solicitation of this process is pathogenic. Uncontrolled fibrosis still drives close to half of all reported human deaths in the world. Pathological fibrosis is a characteristic feature of diseases like hepatosplenic schistosomiasis, a disease that still affects hundreds of millions in sub-saharan Africa alone and kills hundreds of thousands every year.
In the Kamden's review, a comprehensive report of host factors that might control the process of fibrosis following Schistosoma spp egg deposition in the liver of infected individuals is provided. Such a library constitutes an unprecedentedly well gathered wealth of information that should help better compile host factors that control the tissue fibrotic process in the liver so as to inform novel host-directed anti-fibrotic strategies against such factors.
This work, which is the foundation of Kamden's PhD thesis, is the beginning of an ongoing bigger project funded by The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), with supervisor Dr. Nono, to establish a more comprehensive list of host factors that might regulate liver fibrosis in schistosomiasis-diseased African children. The review describes in full all human fibroregulatory factors that are known in the context of liver schistosomiasis as of now, waiting to be complemented by other factors ongoing work hopes to identify.
Article by Bonamy Holtak