The scientific journal Gastroenterology has published the work of a team from research center Applied Medicine (CIMA) of the University of Navarra on a subject of non-alcoholic cirrhosis. Its lead author, January Salas, together with other scientists from laboratory of Genetics Molecular have discovered that the deficiency of the AE2 protein produces a picture of biliary cirrhosis in animals very similar to that observed in patients with primary biliary cirrhosis. This chronic and progressive liver disease affects about 1,000 patients annually in Spain, 90% of whom are women, mainly middle-aged.

Despite being associated with autoimmune phenomena, patients do not respond to immunosuppressants, so the only partially effective treatment so far is ursodeoxycholic acid, a bile salt that increases the production of bicarbonate-rich bile. Thanks to this treatment, many of the liver transplants that this disease required until recently have been avoided.

Together with the publication of the study, Gastroenterology adds a commentary publishing house that considers this research as one of the four most relevant contributions of the month of May. The authors of the article, directed by Dr. Juan Francisco Medina, are the researchers January T. Salas, Jesús M. Bañales, Sarai Sarvide, Sergio Recalde, Alex Ferrer, Iker Uriarte, Ronald P. J. Oude Elferink and Jesús Prieto. Some of them are also part of research center Biomedica en network de Enfermedades Hepáticas y Digestivas (CIBERehd).