Transplant Telomeres
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Telomere Length in Liver Transplantation
IRAS ID
248068
Contact name
Nigel D Heaton
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Liver transplantation is an established treatment for acute and chronic liver failure in adults and children. Often there are significant differences in age between the donor and recipient e.g older donor into child. However, analysis of our clinical data has demonstrated that the ‘older’ liver benefits from being transplanted into a younger recipient which maybe related to the recipient environment "rejuvenating" the older liver. In another liver transplant model of auxiliary partial orthotopic liver transplantation (APOLT) for acute liver failure, where a section of donor liver is used to keep the recipient alive while allowing the native liver to regenerate. From our clinical experience, at least two thirds of patients after APOLT will be able to recover their native liver function. A key question is whether there is a change/difference in the liver cell (hepatocyte) senescence (aging process) that reflects the ability of a liver to regenerate.
Telomeres are a section of non coding DNA at the end of a chromosome and as a cell ages, the telomere length becomes shorter. The proposed work is a pilot study on hepatocyte telomere length in liver transplantation to assess whether it is associated with the ability to recover/regenerate.
REC name
London - Brent Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/1832
Date of REC Opinion
21 Jan 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion