A research group led by Dr. Tomoaki Murakami from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has discovered that fibrinogen Aα-chain amyloidosis, a previously unreported disease in animals other than humans, is highly prevalent in Japanese squirrels (Sciurus lis). In this study, they compared the pathology with that of humans and emphasized the importance of Japanese squirrels in the comparative pathological analysis of fibrinogen Aα-chain amyloidosis.
The researchers published their findings on August 8th in the Journal of Pathology.
Amyloidosis is a group of diseases in which amyloid, formed by misfolding of host proteins, accumulates in various organs. Fibrinogen Aα-chain amyloidosis is an inherited disorder in which fibrinogen Aα-chain, a protein involved in blood coagulation, forms amyloid and deposits in the renal glomeruli, leading to renal failure.
The disease was first reported in 1993, but a definitive treatment has not been established due to the limited number of patients and many unknowns about the disease’s development. In this study, the researchers found that fibrinogen Aα-chain amyloidosis occurs extremely frequently in Japanese squirrels and compared its pathogenesis with that in humans.
The research team initially conducted histopathological analysis on the organs of 38 captive Japanese squirrels that died at five zoos in Japan between 2018 and 2022. They discovered that 29 cases (76.3%) exhibited systemic amyloidosis characterized by severe glomerular amyloid deposition.
2023-08-18 10:00:04
Source from phys.org