studies

364A AASLD ABSTRACTS HEPATOLOGY, October, 2015
minimal and discordant, the aims of our study were to: 1)
investigate HPSE expression in HSCs during their activation;
2) evaluate HPSE activity in the plasma of patients with liver
fibrosis. Methods. HSCs were isolated from rat liver and cultured
on plastic to induce activation. HPSE expression, together
with markers of HSCs transdifferentiation, were evaluated by
real-time PCR at different days after isolation. HPSE protein
amount was evaluated by immunofluorescence (IF). Utilizing
an ELISA method, HPSE activity was measured in the plasma
from 15 healthy subjects and 45 patients diagnosed with autoimmune
chronic liver diseases (15 AIH, 17 PBC, 13 PSC);
HPSE activity was correlated with fibrosis staging assessed by
elastography. Results. After 15 days on plastic, HSCs resulted
activated with the increase of alpha-SMA, fibronectin and TGFbeta
expression with respect to 7 days cultured cells. Upon activation,
HPSE mRNA was significantly 1.94-fold overexpressed
in 15 days vs 7 days cultured cells. HPSE increase was confirmed
by IF. HPSE plasma activity was significantly higher in
patients with mild, significant and severe fibrosis compared
to the control group (0.32±0.04, 0.25±0.03, 0.21±0.03
respectively vs 0.06±0.01, p