Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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NASH

Bile acid uptake inhibitor prevents NASH/fatty liver in mice

Drugs that interfere with bile acid recycling can prevent several aspects of NASH (nonalcoholic steatohepatitis) in mice fed a high-fat diet, scientists from Emory University School of Medicine and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta have shown.

The findings suggest that these drugs, known as ASBT inhibitors, could be a viable clinical strategy to address NASH, an increasingly common liver disease. The results were published in Science Translational Medicine on September 21, 2016.

“By targeting a process that takes place in the intestine, we can improve liver function and reduce insulin resistance in a mouse model of NASH,” says senior author Saul Karpen, MD, PhD. “We can even get fat levels in the liver down to what we see in mice fed a regular diet. These are promising results that need additional confirmation in human clinical trials.”

Karpen is Raymond F. Schinazi distinguished professor of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine and chief of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. He and Paul Dawson, PhD, Emory professor of pediatrics, jointly run a lab that investigates the role of bile acids in liver disease.

Saul Karpen, MD, PhD

Saul Karpen, MD, PhD

Many people in developed countries have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, an accumulation of fat in the liver that is linked to diet and obesity. Fatty liver disease confers an elevated risk of type II diabetes and heart disease. NASH is a more severe inflammation of the liver that can progress to cirrhosis, and is a rising indication for liver transplant. Besides diet and exercise, there are no medical treatments for NASH, which affects an estimated 2 to 5 percent of Americans. Read more

Posted on September 22, 2016 by Quinn Eastman in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Leaky gut plus diet together drive liver disease

 

Frank Anania, MD

Lots of people in the United States consume a diet that is high in sugar and fat, and many develop non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a relatively innocuous condition. NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis) is the more unruly version, linked to elevated risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, and can progress to cirrhosis. NASH is expected to become the leading indication for liver transplant. But only a fraction of people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease go on to develop NASH.

Thus, many researchers are trying to solve this equation:

High-sugar, high-fat diet plus X results in NASH.

Emory hepatologist Frank Anania and colleagues make the case in a recent Gastroenterology paper that a “leaky gut”, allowing intestinal microbes to promote liver inflammation, could be a missing X factor.

Anania’s lab started off with mice fed a diet high in saturated fat, fructose and cholesterol (in the figure, PrintHFCD). This combination gives the mice moderate fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome (see this 2015 paper, and we can expect to hear more about this model soon from Saul Karpen). Leaky gut, brought about by removing a junction protein from intestinal cells, sped up and intensified the development of NASH.

The authors say that this model could be useful for the study of NASH, which has been difficult to reproduce in mice.

The researchers could attenuate liver disease in the mice by treatment with antibiotics or sevelamer, a phosphate binding polymer that soaks up inflammatory toxins from bacteria. Sevelamer is now used to treat excess phosphate in patients with chronic kidney disease, and is being studied clinically in connection with insulin resistance.
Read more

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Quinn Eastman in Uncategorized Leave a comment