Inhibition of heme-thiolate monooxygenase CYP1B1 prevents hepatic stellate cell activation and liver fibrosis by accumulating trehalose.

Activation of extracellular matrix-producing hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) is a key event in liver fibrogenesis. We showed that the expression of the heme-thiolate monooxygenase cytochrome P450 1B1 (CYP1B1) was elevated in human and mouse fibrotic livers and activated HSCs. Systemic or HSC-specific ablation and pharmacological inhibition of CYP1B1 attenuated HSC activation and protected male but not female mice from thioacetamide (TAA)-, carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-, or bile duct ligation (BDL)-induced liver fibrosis. Metabolomic analysis revealed an increase in the disaccharide trehalose in CYP1B1-deficient HSCs resulting from intestinal suppression of the trehalose-metabolizing enzyme trehalase, whose gene we found to be a target of RARα. Trehalose or its hydrolysis-resistant derivative lactotrehalose exhibited potent antifibrotic activity in vitro and in vivo by functioning as an HSC-specific autophagy inhibitor, which may account for the antifibrotic effect of CYP1B1 inhibition. Our study thus reveals an endobiotic function of CYP1B1 in liver fibrosis in males, mediated by liver-intestine cross-talk and trehalose. At the translational level, pharmacological inhibition of CYP1B1 or the use of trehalose/lactotrehalose may represent therapeutic strategies for liver fibrosis.

Citation

Hung-Chun Tung, Jong-Won Kim, Junjie Zhu, Sihan Li, Jiong Yan, Qing Liu, Imhoi Koo, Sergei A Koshkin, Fuhua Hao, Guo Zhong, Meishu Xu, Zehua Wang, Jingyuan Wang, Yixian Huang, Yue Xi, Xinran Cai, Pengfei Xu, Songrong Ren, Takanobu Higashiyama, Frank J Gonzalez, Song Li, Nina Isoherranen, Da Yang, Xiaochao Ma, Andrew D Patterson, Wen Xie. Inhibition of heme-thiolate monooxygenase CYP1B1 prevents hepatic stellate cell activation and liver fibrosis by accumulating trehalose. Science translational medicine. 2024 Sep 25;16(766):eadk8446

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PMID: 39321267

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