Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF/CCN2) in serum is an indicator of fibrogenic progression and malignant transformation in patients with chronic hepatitis B infection.

Still a challenging medical problem is the non-invasive monitoring of patients with a variety of chronic liver diseases being on risk to develop fibrosis, cirrhosis, and, finally, primary liver cell carcinoma. Previously, we have shown that CTGF/CCN2, a down-stream mediator of TGF-β, in serum might be a promising non-invasive biomarker of fibrosis, which is extended in the following study to cirrhosis and liver cell carcinoma. Healthy individuals (n=56), as well as fibrotic (n=77), cirrhotic (n=17), and HCC-patients (n=72) with chronic hepatitis B (HBV) infection, clinically, biochemically and histopathologically well characterized and classified, were included for the measurements of CTGF-concentrations in serum using a newly developed CTGF-enzyme immunoassay.

Connective tissue growth factor reacts as an IL-6/STAT3-regulated hepatic negative acute phase protein.

Aim: To investigate the mechanisms involved in a possible modulator role of interleukin (IL)-6 signalling on CYR61-CTGF-NOV (CCN) 2/connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) expression in hepatocytes (PC) and to look for a relation between serum concentrations of these two parameters in patients with acute inflammation.

Methods: Expression of CCN2/CTGF, p-STAT3, p-Smad3/1 and p-Smad2 was examined in primary freshly isolated rat or cryo-preserved human PC exposed to various stimuli by Western blotting, electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA), reporter-gene-assays and reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction.

Results: IL-6 strongly down-regulated CCN2/CTGF protein and mRNA expression in PC, enhanceable by extracellular presence of the soluble IL-6 receptor gp80, and supported by an inverse relation between IL-6 and CCN2/CTGF concentrations in patients' sera.

Increased serum xylosyltransferase activity in patients with liver fibrosis.

Background: We investigated the xylosyltransferase (XT) activity in the serum of liver fibrotic patients with hepatitis C virus induced liver fibrosis at different stages as determined according to the scoring system of Desmet and Scheuer.

Methods: Measurement of XT activity was performed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

Results: We found that serum XT activity in males (n=59, median+/-SD, 27.

Impact of quality control accepted inter-laboratory variations on calculated Fibrotest/Actitest scores for the non-invasive biochemical assessment of liver fibrosis.

Introduction: Non-invasive, i.e. serum-based assessment of liver fibrosis is still an important diagnostic challenge although multiple single and multiparametric panels of biomarkers have been suggested.

BMP-7 as antagonist of organ fibrosis.

Fibrosis is a scarring process that is a common feature of chronic organ injury. It is characterized by elevated activity of transforming growth factor-beta resulting in increased and altered deposition of extracellular matrix and other fibrosis-associated proteins. Recent work has demonstrated that bone morphogenetic protein-7 blocks transforming growth factor-beta signaling.