beijing
Recently, a significant breakthrough has been achieved in collaborative research on the origin of liver function, led by Professors Liu Chang and Qu Kai's team from the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Liver Transplantation, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, and Professors Wang Wen, Qiu Qiang, and Wang Kun's team from the School of Ecology and Environment, Northwestern Polytechnical University.
The research reportedly utilized multi-omics analysis techniques to deeply explore the homology and differences between the amphioxus hepatic caecum and the vertebrate liver. The team mapped the evolutionary atlas of liver functions, revealing the key role of genome duplication events in shaping complex functions such as liver regeneration, bile formation, and coagulation factor synthesis.
Furthermore, additional functional studies confirmed that the formation of liver sinusoids, mediated by the kinase insert domain receptor (KDR) gene and fms-related tyrosine kinase 4 (FLT4) gene, is a critical event in the functional evolution of the vertebrate liver. This finding highlights the crucial role and significant impact of liver sinusoids in liver regeneration, offering valuable insights for the development of liver regeneration drugs, with the potential to benefit liver disease patients.
"This discovery challenges the previous hypothesis that organ evolution is primarily driven by changes in gene regulatory elements, underscoring the importance of gene duplicates in the emergence and functional evolution of a complex organ," said Liu. "The findings will be applied in liver regeneration and will have a positive impact on the drug development for liver disease treatment and surgical innovation."
Currently, the research findings of this scientific team have been published online in the top journal in the field of biology and ecology, Nature: Ecology & Evolution.
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