P-STAT3-dependent SPP1 transcription in cholangiocytes drives hepatic stellate cells activation in congenital hepatic fibrosis
Mengfan Jiao, Ye Sun, Rui Liu, Xizhi Yin, Xiaoxue Hou, Hui Yuan, Zixing Dai, Qingling Chen, Chuanlong Zhu · 2026
Read P-STAT3-dependent SPP1 transcription in cholangiocytes drives hepatic stellate cells activation in congenital hepatic fibrosis by Mengfan Jiao, Ye Sun, Rui Liu, Xizhi Yin, Xiaoxue Hou, Hui Yuan, Zixing Dai, Qingling Chen, Chuanlong Zhu (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13590539.txt.
Description
Mengfan Jiao and colleagues traced a molecular chain that drives liver scarring in congenital hepatic fibrosis, a rare inherited liver disease. Mutations in PKHD1 cause the disease, but how faulty bile-duct cells activate scar-forming stellate cells was unclear. Their 2026 study combined single-cell gene reads from a patient with compound PKHD1 mutations and a gene-knockout mouse model that reproduced bile-duct overgrowth and fibrosis.
PKHD1 loss raised SPP1 in bile-duct cells, and the secreted protein switched on PI3K/Akt signalling in stellate cells, activating them. The transcription factor p-STAT3 directly drove SPP1 production, and silencing SPP1 in bile-duct cells with a viral vector eased fibrosis in mice. The authors propose the p-STAT3-SPP1 axis as a therapeutic target for this currently untreatable disease.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Mengfan Jiao, Ye Sun, Rui Liu, Xizhi Yin, Xiaoxue Hou, Hui Yuan, Zixing Dai, Qingling Chen, Chuanlong Zhu |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 63 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |