Drug-induced liver damage is related to bile acid metabolism
23/08/2025 update: 23/08/2025
2 minutes of reading
Analysis of metabolites in serum and feces revealed the role of bile acid metabolism in the assessment of drug-induced liver damage, reports the Journal of Clinical and Translational Hepatology .
Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is damage or dysfunction of the liver associated with the use of drugs (including those considered "natural" or "traditional").
Although DILI is relatively common, the precise mechanisms underlying it are not fully understood. There are also no specific biomarkers that would facilitate diagnosis and, consequently, treatment and prognosis.
Therefore, Chinese researchers from PLA General Hospital in Beijing and Beijing University of Chinese Medicine aimed to identify biomarkers specific to DILI. To this end, they conducted an untargeted metabolomic analysis of serum and stool samples collected from 32 DILI patients and 36 healthy controls.
Using techniques such as least squares modeling and discriminant analysis, diagnostically promising metabolites and metabolite sets were identified.
The results of the analysis of metabolic pathways in serum and feces suggest that disturbances in bile acid metabolism may underlie the progression of DILI. The study identified 22 overlapping, differentially expressed metabolites in serum and feces, with significant concentration differences between the DILI control group and the healthy control group. Chenodeoxycholic acid and deoxycholic acid, in particular, emerged as promising markers: they not only distinguish DILI patients from healthy individuals but also show potential for predicting the chronic course of DILI.
Future controlled studies should help clarify the causal role of drug administration in bile acid dysregulation and improve the specificity of biomarker identification. Although further work is necessary, these metabolic signatures may complement the early diagnosis and prognosis of DILI. Large-scale, multicenter studies examining biomarker specificity across different liver diseases (e.g., viral hepatitis, alcoholic liver disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease) are needed.
Paweł Wernicki (PAP)
pmw/ bar/
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