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Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 50(4), 1994, pp. 499-505
Copyright © 1994 by The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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Reversal of Advanced Liver Fibrosis in Rabbits with Schistosomiasis Japonica

Michael A. Dunn, Allen W. Cheever, Larry M. Paglia, Eileen P. Kelly, Rodney H. Duvall, Zilton A. Andrade AND Fred H. Goldner
Department of Gastroenterology, Division of Medicine, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, District of Columbia; Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland; Department of Biochemistry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York; Digestive Diseases Division, Department of Medicine, F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland; Department of Pathology, Goncalo Moniz Research Center, Bahia, Brazil

Advanced liver fibrosis is generally considered to be irreversible. We studied the reversibility of marked liver fibrosis in rabbits infected with Schistosoma japonicum. We determined liver collagen content, collagen biosynthesis, and collagenase activity using serial biopsy specimens obtained 20, 40, and 60 weeks after infection. Reversibility of this process was investigated in rabbits cured of infection at 21 weeks; control rabbits not cured of infection were also studied. At 20 weeks, liver collagen content was 16-fold greater than normal, with accumulation of collagen types I, III, and V. Synthesis of collagen within fibrotic liver slices was 10-fold greater than normal. Liver collagenolytic activity for a type I substrate was 19-fold greater than normal. After parasitologic cure, a striking morphologic reversal of fibrosis occurred during the subsequent 40 weeks, with the return of liver collagen content to three-fold greater than normal and a 75% decrease in synthetic rates compared with those at 20 weeks (P < 0.01). Collagenolytic activity remained elevated to the same degree noted at 20 weeks. A similar but lesser resolution of fibrosis also occurred in untreated control rabbits, coincident with a spontaneous decrease in new egg deposition known to occur in this model system. We conclude that advanced liver fibrosis in S. japonicum-infected rabbits is slowly reversible after cure or senescence of the infection. A possible mechanism for this reversal is persistently increased collagenolysis as collagen synthesis diminishes.






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Copyright © 1994 by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.