Forschungsseminar Vorlesung von Saskia Schmidt und Victor Dudal

Liver fibrosis is characterized by the replacement of liver tissue by connective tissue as a result of chronic liver injury. Methotrexate, which is often used in the long-term treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, has been associated with fibrosis in 5% of treated patients. The mechanism by which methotrexate induces fibrosis, is still poorly understood. Thus, we set off to investigate the mechanism of hepatotoxicity of methotrexate in human surrogate cell lines HepaRG and hTERT-HSC. This presentation will detail the thinking process and underlying biological reasons to the development of a novel in-vitro model used to perform some pre-clinical toxicology. This will allow us to give a simple but detailed explanations of some basic immunological concept such as inflammation, immune invasion, the inflammasome and more. We will also briefly explore a new type of compound, nanoparticles.