Transforming Growth Factor Beta 1 and Chronic Liver Diseases.

¹Mervat A Mohamed, ¹Taghreed HT El-Khashab, ²Mohamed K Shaker and ¹Nehad S Abdel Fattah.

Departments of ¹Microbiology and Immunology and ²Tropical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.

Transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-b1) is an important mediator which controls liver cell proliferation and replication. The clinical relevance of TGF-b1 in chronic liver diseases and hepatocellular carcinoma was assessed. TGF-b1 levels in sera collected from 13 patients suffering from bilharzial liver disease, 20 patients with chronic viral hepatitis, 20 non alcoholic liver cirrhosis and 20 with hepatocellular carcinoma were measured using ELISA technique (Second generation enzyme immunoassay, EIA kit, Abbott laboratories, North Chicago, USA) after acid extraction. Eighteen healthy persons were used as controls. All diseased groups showed higher levels of TGF-b1 (P < 0.001) as compared to the control group (25.2l ± 2.6 pg/ml). Patients with bilharziasis had the highest level of TGF-b1 (107.9 ± 21.4 pg/ml) followed by those with hepatocellular carcinoma (85.13 ± 12.4 pg/ml), then chronic hepatitis patients (75.21 ± 7.8 pg/ml) and lastly patients with liver cirrhosis (49.12 + 7.98 pg/ml). A significant correlation was found between TGF-b1 level and the severity of liver cirrhosis as the level was higher in Child’s class C patients than those of class B (67.94 + 14.8 pg/ml versus 33.74 + 5.3 pg/ml) (P<0.001). TGF-b1 levels in hepatoma patients with antibodies to hepatitis C virus (anti HCV) were higher than in those without (106.1 + 20.6 pg/ml versus 59.47 + 4.2 pg/ml) (P<0.05). No significant correlation was found between TGF-b1 level and the liver function tests. There was also no significant correlation between TGF-b1 levels and serum a fetoprotein levels in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (P>0.05). It can be concluded that TGF-b1 is elevated in cases of liver fibrosis and can be used as a marker for the severity and the degree of fibrogenesis. It is also elevated in hepatocellular carcinoma and thus it might be a candidate for a novel tumor marker in cases with normal a fetoprotein level.