Department of Hepatology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Hunan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Changsha 410000, China.
Department of Gastroenterology, Heilongjiang Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Harbin 150001, China.
Exp Biol Med (Maywood). 2022 Jul;247(14):1235-1243. doi: 10.1177/15353702221092672. Epub 2022 Apr 27.
Liver fibrosis is the common pathological change of chronic liver diseases characterized by increased deposition of extracellular matrix and reduced matrix degradation. In response to liver injury caused by a variety of pathogenic agents, such as virus and alcohol, hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) are differentiated into myofibroblast-like cells and produce excessive collagens, thus resulting in fibrogenesis. Natural killer (NK) cells are the essential innate immune cells in the liver and generally control fibrosis by killing activated HSCs. This review briefly describes the fibrogenesis process and the phenotypic features of hepatic NK cells. Besides, it focuses on the antifibrotic mechanisms of NK cells and explores the potential of activating NK cells as a therapeutic strategy for the disease.
肝纤维化是慢性肝病的常见病理变化，其特征是细胞外基质的沉积增加和基质降解减少。针对各种病原体（如病毒和酒精）引起的肝损伤，肝星状细胞（HSCs）分化为肌成纤维细胞样细胞，并产生过量的胶原，从而导致纤维化。自然杀伤（NK）细胞是肝脏中必不可少的固有免疫细胞，通常通过杀死活化的 HSCs 来控制纤维化。本文简要描述了纤维化的发生过程和肝 NK 细胞的表型特征。此外，本文还重点探讨了 NK 细胞的抗纤维化机制，并探讨了激活 NK 细胞作为疾病治疗策略的潜力。
