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Abstract Details
Understanding gut-liver axis nitrogen metabolism in Fatty Liver Disease
Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2022 Dec 15;13:1058101.doi: 10.3389/fendo.2022.1058101. eCollection 2022.
1Liver Disease Lab, Center for Cooperative Research in Biosciences (CIC bioGUNE), Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Derio, Bizkaia, Spain.
2Congenital Metabolic Disorders, Biocruces Bizkaia Health Research Institute, Barakaldo, Spain.
3Division of Pediatric Metabolism, Department of Pediatrics, CIBERer, Cruces University Hospital, Barakaldo, Spain.
4Department of Pediatrics, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain.
5Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Hepáticas y Digestivas (CIBERehd), Carlos III National Health Institute, Madrid, Spain.
Abstract
The homeostasis of the most important nitrogen-containing intermediates, ammonia and glutamine, is a tightly regulated process in which the gut-liver axis plays a central role. Several studies revealed that nitrogen metabolism is altered in Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Fatty Liver Disease (MAFLD), a consensus-driven novel nomenclature for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), the most common chronic liver disease worldwide. Both increased ammonia production by gut microbiota and decreased ammonia hepatic removal due to impaired hepatic urea cycle activity or disrupted glutamine synthetase activity may contribute to hepatic ammonia accumulation underlying steatosis, which can eventually progress to hyperammonemia in more advanced stages of steatohepatitis and overt liver fibrosis. Furthermore, our group recently showed that augmented hepatic ammoniagenesis via increased glutaminase activity and overexpression of the high activity glutaminase 1 isoenzyme occurs in Fatty Liver Disease. Overall, the improved knowledge of disrupted nitrogen metabolism and metabolic miscommunication between the gut and the liver suggests that the reestablishment of altered gut-liver axis nitrogenous balance is an appealing and attractive therapeutic approach to tackle Fatty Liver Disease, a growing and unmet health problem.