Armadillo leprosy can help regenerate human liver; to understand

According to researchers at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, joyful armadillos can keep the secret of its renewal. liver🇧🇷 Scientists have found that when the animal is infected bacterium your liver, which causes leprosy in humans revive significantly – now they want to understand whether this applies to humans.

Although the human liver does regenerate under certain conditions, researchers still do not understand how it is possible to trigger regeneration in people with more serious diseases such as cirrhosis. The discovery about the relationship between leprosy and organ regeneration came about ten years ago through research by regenerative biologist Anura Rambukkana of the University of Edinburgh.

At that time, the scientist conducted research on mouse cells without a living animal – normally bacteria do not grow well in mice and other animals. Fortunately, Rambukkana remembered that there was a breeding of nine-banded armadillos with leprosy in Louisiana, in the United States, and took samples from there for the new recently published study. Cell Reports Medicine🇧🇷

After contacting the armadillo-breeding facility, he wondered if there was anything unusual in the organs of animals with the disease. That’s why he noticed significant liver enlargement—they were one-third larger than uninfected armadillos.

Leprosy and the Liver

In addition to growth, livers have also been shown to maintain a common anatomy. To better understand, the scientists measured the genetic activity of infected and uninfected animals, and according to the analysis, the gene’s activity resembles the pattern of the liver in the formation of a human fetus.

Anyway, scientists need to study the case further to understand how it might be possible to activate this mechanism in the human body. Also, the main thing is to understand how to use leprosy bacteria to help people, as it is a contagious disease.

“Overall, the results could pave the way for new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of liver diseases such as cirrhosis. However, as the research was conducted using armadillos as model animals, it is unclear how and how these promising results will translate into biology. Darius Widera of the University of Reading, who was not involved in the research, said in the BBC. “The human liver,” he told .