Liver Growth and Repair / Edition 1

by A. Strain, A.M. Diehl

Overview

Nelson Fausto The Greek myth of Prometheus with its picture of a vulture feasting on its chained victimhas traditionallyprovided a visualimageofliverregeneration. Itis apowerful and frightening representationbut ifone were to substitute the vulture by a surgeon and Prometheus by a patient laying on a properly prepared operating table, the outcomeof theprocedurewould not differ significantlyfrom that describedbyGreek poets. Yet few of us who work in the field have stopped long enough to ask where this myth originated. Did the poet observe a case of liver regeneration in a human being? Was it brilliant intuition or perhaps, literally, just a 'gut feeling' of a poet looking for good rhymes that led to the prediction that livers grow when part of the tissueisremoved? Thisbookdoesnotattemptto solve these historical issues. Itdoes, instead, cover in detail some of the major modem themes of research on liver regeneration, injury and repair. As indicated in Dr. N. Bucher's chapter, the modem phase ofexperimental studies on liver regeneration started in 1931 with the publication by Higgins and Anderson of a method to perform a two-thirds resection of the liver of a rat. The technique described has 3 remarkable features: 1) it is highly reproducible, resulting in the removal of 68% of the liver, 2) it has minimal if any mortality, and 3) it consists only of blood vessel ligation and does not involve cutting through or wounding hepatic tissue.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780412712609
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	12/31/1997
Edition description:	1998
Pages:	662
Product dimensions:	7.01(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

One Molecular and Cellular Analysis of Liver Growth.- 1 Liver regeneration following partial hepatectomy: genes and metabolism.- 2 Liver regeneration following hepatic injury.- 3 Epithelial stem-like cells of the rodent liver.- 4 Transgenic animals as models for hepaarcinogenesis.- 5 Gene knockout animal models.- 6 Biological activity of growth factors in vivo.- Two Growth Factors.- 7 The EGF/TGF? family of growth factors and their receptors.- 8 Hepayte growth factor in liver growth and differentiation.- 9 The fibroblast growth factor family.- 10 Growth inhibitory signals and liver regeneration: the TGF? superfamily.- 11 Cytokines.- Three Signaling Events.- 12 Proto-oncogenes/transcription factors.- 13 Cyclins and gap junctions in liver growth and repair.- 14 Intracellular signal transduction in liver regeneration.- Four Biology of the Extracellular Matrix and Non-Parenchymal Cells.- 15 Proteoglycans.- 16 Regulation of collagen gene expression.- 17 The extracellular matrix in liver regeneration.- 18 Hepayte co-culture, three-dimensional culture models and the extracellular matrix.- 19 Kupffer cells and endothelial cells.- 20 Hepatic stellate cells.- Five Human Liver Growth and Clinical Applications.- 21 Human liver growth and development.- 22 Human liver growth in fibrosis and cirrhosis.- 23 Hepayte transplantation: novel applications.- 24 Hepatic gene therapy.- 25 Artificial liver support.