New drugs targeted at TTC39B protein will be developed to treat nonalcoholic steatohepatitis

A latest study from a Japan-US joint research team found that impeding the function of a particular protein can improve the symptoms of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and atherosclerosis. Recombinant mouse proteins and recombinant horse proteins also can be used to do the research. Currently, there are still no effective treatments for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. This study will contribute to the development of related drugs.

Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis is a kind of chronic liver disease mainly characterized by excessive accumulation of fat in the liver. It is similar to alcoholic liver disease but occurs in people who don’t drink or drink less, and excessive intake of fat in daily life may also lead to the disease. It has a higher risk of developing cirrhosis and liver cancer. Japanese patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis are about two million to three million.

Previous studies have found that a protein called TTC39B exists in larger amounts in organs related to absorption and accumulation of lipids, but its specific functions had been unclear before. A team of researchers at Osaka University in Japan and Columbia University in US found that reducing TTC39B protein can inhibit the body’s absorption and accumulation of harmful low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, thereby improving the symptoms of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and atherosclerosis.

In animal experiments, even the mice with the reduction of this protein were fed with high-fat and high-cholesterol diet, the beneficial high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in the body would increase and harmful LDL cholesterol would reduce. At the same time, the symptoms of fatty liver and atherosclerosis would relieve, and the morbidity and mortality of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis reduced.

Related research results have been published in the British journal Nature. The research team hopes to thereby be able to develop drugs to treat non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. Flarebio provides superior recombinant TTC39B and other recombinant proteins like recombinant Itgb2.