Researchers have proven that damaged cells in one vital organ can “infect” healthy organs, discovery a way to block their impact in the process.
A study, led by the University of Edinburgh, has shown for the first time how the deterioration of cells in a damaged liver, which activated a process associated with ageing and impaired function, could then transmit to otherwise healthy organs elsewhere in the body.
Professor Tom Bird said scientists also identified a key protein that could be manipulated to prevent that type of multi-organ failure.
Professor Bird said the findings could help us understand how diseases in different parts of the body interact with each other and what happens as people age.
“This may be a means by which severe disease, even in a single organ, can snowball into the failure of many organs in the body,” he said.
“But it can also teach us about ways to prevent this happening, both in sudden disease and potentially in a range of diseases occurring over years or even decades as we age.”
Professor Bird said as the body aged cells became tired and stopped working effectively.
“This process – called cell senescence – is a common effect of ageing but can also be triggered by diseases at any stage of life.”
He said the study, which focused on mice with sudden liver failure, found once a large enough number of liver cells were damaged, senescence started to appear in other organs, including the kidneys, lungs and brain, causing them to fail.
“Researchers identified a key biological pathway involving TGFβ – a protein linked to the immune system – which, when blocked in mice, prevented the senescence in liver cells from spreading to other organs.
“In the future, treatments to block this pathway could prevent multi-organ failure in patients with severe liver injury.”
Read the full study: Hepatocellular senescence induces multi-organ senescence and dysfunction via TGFβ
