Methods to study mitochondrial damage in fatty liver disease
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is an increasingly prevalent and underdiagnosed disease affecting more than 29 million Europeans in which diet-induced accumulation of hepatic fat can cause permanent liver damage with serious consequences. NAFLD has a strong association with diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndromes and has been associated with diet. Clinical symptoms only surface at late stages of the disease, when it is no longer treatable. Untreated, NAFLD can lead to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, culminating in liver failure. Our lab is part of the mtFoiegras project which is a collaboration between industry and academia based in 7 different EU countries, aiming to develop non-invasive, accurate, detection of NAFLD. Our remit it to develop methods to measure mitochondrial function in healthy and NAFLD patients and model systems. Our lab is developing mtDNA based methods to detect cell-free mtDNA in collaboration with Mediagnost, Germany, and to understand the mechanisms of mitochondrial damage in collaboration with Professor Mariusz Wiecowski, Poland.
Mitochondrial damage in fatty liver disease