Study on Serum Cholinesterase as Marker of Chronic Liver Disease

Chronic liver disease is marked by the gradual destruction of liver tissue over time and replacement of normal liver with nodules of scar tissue. Several liver diseases fall under this category. The end results of the gradual destruction are cirrhosis and fibrosis of the liver. It is estimated that more than 170 million people worldwide are chronically infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). The most important consequence of chronic HCV infection is progressive liver fibrosis leading to cirrhosis and finally to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which has significant morbidity and mortality. Many factors, such as alcohol intake, older age at time of infection, male gender, and co-infection with the human immunodeficiency virus or hepatitis B virus accelerate disease progression. There are two types of cholinesterase enzymes in the blood: acetylcholinesterase, found mainly in red blood cells (RBC) and butarylcholinesterase found in serum or plasma. The general term ChE is used for both enzymes MicroRNA (miRNA) was first discovered in 1993, and was characterized as a small, non-coding RNA miRNA are small RNA molecules which target many mRNA transcripts, leading to their post-transcriptional silencing. Many mRNAs can be silenced by multiple miRNA and miRNA often target more than one mRNA participating in a particular biological function (MicroRNA-132 (miR-132) targets acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and potentiates the cholinergic blockade of inflammatory reactions in cultured cells