The liver is a vital organ, crucial to digestion, metabolism and the elimination of toxins. It has a unique ability, regeneration, which allows it to replace liver cells damaged by the very toxins that these cells eliminate. However, the liver stops regenerating in cases of diseases that involve chronic liver damage –such as cirrhosis–. Such diseases are becoming increasingly prevalent, associated with bad dietary habits and alcohol.
Learning to activate liver regeneration is therefore a priority today, to benefit mainly patients with severe liver damage and also those who have had part of their liver cut out to remove a tumour.
Research at the National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), published today in Nature, has discovered in animal models a previously unknown mechanism of liver regeneration. It is a…