Pro- and anti-fibrotic agents in liver fibrosis:Perspective from an ex vivo model of liver fibrosis

This thesis provides new insight into the association of the gut-liver axis with liver fibrosis and demonstrates that the development of small molecule inhibitors of the TGF-β signaling pathway is an encouraging strategy to extenuate liver fibrosis. In addition, modulating oxidative stress, another pro-fibrogenic signal, might provide a bright future for combatting liver fibrosis. Moreover, we exhibited here a promising ex-vivo tool, the precision-cut liver slices, for its application in exploring mechanism of liver fibrosis as well as in anti-fibrotic drug discovery in a clinically relevant situation, thereby reducing and refining animal experiments