Effect of Leptin on Experimental Liver Injury Induced by Ethanol

Liver disease is among the top ten killer diseases in India, affecting people in all age groups and causing millions of deaths on an annual basis Worldwide. Liver damage in humans is induced by numerous insults including alcohol abuse, when persistent, leads to development of liver cirrhosis, eventually it causes death in these patients. Obesity is frequently associated with steatohepatitis, a pattern of liver injury that often progresses to cirrhosis in alcoholic individuals. Leptin, an anti-obesity hormone exerts potent modulatory properties both in vivo and in vitro. In this project, leptin treatment to ethanol fed mice, significantly lowered body weight, plasma and tissue lipids, oxidative stress, cytokine response, fibrosis, apoptosis and altered fatty acid composition. In addition, leptin treatment showed significantly increased antioxidant status and decreased oxidative stress, cytokines, and apoptosis in ethanol-exposed HepG2 and mouse hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines. The above results were consistent with the liver histopathological observations, confirming the potential beneficial effect of leptin on alcoholic liver disease (ALD).