In new research published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the research team led by Silvia Vilarinho, MD, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine (digestive diseases), and of pathology, performed genomic analysis to determine the cause of unexplained portal hypertension in four unrelated families.
This paper is a culmination of over five years of work from Vilarinho’s lab. “This is very exciting,” said Vilarinho. “The excitement is to be going from patients that we didn’t know why they develop portal hypertension, to the identification of a novel gene. This new information led us to determine what liver cell is affected and therefore uncover that portal hypertension in these patients resulted from alterations in liver endothelium. Since similar endothelial cell changes are seen in common forms of liver disease, these findings have the potential to actually translate into therapeutics for chronic liver disease.”
The team evaluated nine patients from four families with unexplained portal hypertension and found that each affected person had a rare alteration in the same GIMAP5 gene. After the team replicated their findings using mouse models, they determined that recessive GIMAP5 genotypes resulted in the loss of normal GIMAP5 function and in turn, is an important regulator of liver endothelial cell homeostasis and in its absence, causes portal hypertension.
Vilarinho’s lab will continue to evaluate the role of GIMAP5 in liver disease to determine the scope of the issue. “This is one of the main reasons I am passionate about a physician-scientist career. It is fascinating to uncover a new molecular mechanism that explains why certain individuals develop disease. We are interested to investigate whether this pathway is also important in common forms of liver disease, and if yes, I think we could be on great things. If it’s rare, we will still help people, just at a smaller scale,” she said.
Learn more about the findings in “GIMAP5 maintains liver endothelial cell homeostasis and prevents portal hypertension.”
In addition to Vilarinho, other Yale researchers include Kaela Drzewiecki; Joseph Brancale; Dhanpat Jain, MD; Junhui Zhang, MD; João P. Pereira, Ph.D.; and Richard P. Lifton, MD, Ph.D. Researchers from the Korea University College of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Gazi University, Dr. Sami Ulus Maternity and Child Health and Diseases Training and Research Hospital, Marmara University School of Medicine, The Isil Berat Barlan Center for Translational Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital, Janssen R&D, Laboratory of Human Genetics and Genomics at The Rockefeller University also participated in this research.
