Mx proteins in biliary atresia

PubMed, the Internet portal of biomedical and life sciences literature, indexed an interesting article, entitled “Expression of the interferon-induced Mx proteins in biliary atresia”/b”> (J Pediatr Surg. 2006 Jun;41(6):1139-43). Authors are Al-Masri AN, Flemming P, Rodeck B et al, from the Department of Pediatric Surgery, Medical School Hannover, Germany. Biliary atresia (BA) is a rare disease of the newborn for which the Kasai procedure is curative only for a few of the patients. The dilemma is that all therapeutic attempts to cure the disease are symptomatic because the etiology is still unclear One theory suggests a progressive inflammatory process, possibly induced by a viral infection. The aim of the present study was to investigate the activity of type I interferons (IFNs) in the livers of patients with BA. Mx proteins, which mediate an early innate immune response, are a very sensitive marker for type I IFN activity (eg, to viral infection). This is the first study dealing with the detection of type I IFN activity in the liver of patients with BA. To access the full abstract of the article, click here.