Biomarkers of liver injury
View Patent ↗Novel, sensitive and specific markers for diagnostics and monitoring of liver injuries, including, but not limited to ischemic liver damage, are provided. This includes identification several enzymes of arginine/urea/nitric oxide cycle, sulfuration enzymes and spectrin breakdown related products, among others.
1. A method for detecting physical liver damage in a subject, comprising;
detecting the presence of one or more biomarkers in a liver or blood sample of a subject suspected of having traumatic injury, transplantation injury or ischemic injury to the liver , said biomarkers selected from the group consisting of argininosuccinate synthetase (ASS), and liver estrogen sulfotransferase (EST-1);
wherein an increased amount of the one or more biomarkers in a subject suspected of having physical liver damage compared to the amount or absence of the same biomarkers in a normal subject is indicative of physical liver damage.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the blood sample is serum or plasma.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein the liver injury is liver transplantation injury.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the increased plasma levels of ASS in subjects with physical liver injury can be detected within about 1 minute to about 30minutes after injury as compared with lack of detectable ASS levels in normal subjects.
5. The method of claim 4 wherein ASS is detected by immunoassay with an antibody produced from a polypeptide having the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:1 or with antibodies produced from SEQ ID NO:1 and SEQ ID NO:2.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein the detecting is by liquid chromatography (LC), sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), mass spectrometry, serum enzyme assay, liver immunohistochemistry, or immunoassay.
7. The method of claim 6 wherein the immunoassay is an ELISA.
8. The method of claim 7 wherein the ELISA is a sandwich ELISA.
9. The method of claim 8 wherein the immunoassay detects ASS with an antibody produced from a polypeptide consisting of the sequence of SEQ ID NO:1 or from SEQ ID NO:2.