The synthetic toxin biliatresone causes biliary atresia in mice.

Exposure to environmental toxins may be responsible for biliary atresia. The focus of this study was to investigate the effect of biliatresone on the development of the hepatobiliary system in mice. We successfully synthesized biliatresone with a purity of 98% and confirmed its biliary toxicity. Exposure to high doses of biliatresone caused abortion or death in pregnant mice. Neonatal mice injected with biliatresone developed clinical signs of biliary obstruction, and dysplasia or the absence of extrahepatic biliary tract lumen, which confirmed the occurrence of biliary atresia. In the portal tract of biliary atresia mice, signs of infiltration of inflammatory cells and liver fibrosis were observed. The signature of extrahepatic biliary gene expression in these mice mainly involved the cell adhesion process, and hepatic RNA-seq was highly linked to transcriptional evidence of oxidative stress. When compared with the control group, hepatic glutathione levels were markedly reduced after biliatresone injection. Taken together, these data confirm that biliatresone causes severe developmental abnormalities of the hepatobiliary system in mice. Furthermore, decreased levels of glutathione may play a mechanistic role in the pathogenesis of liver fibrosis in biliatresone-induced experimental biliary atresia. The authors show that exposure of neonatal mice to the toxin biliatresone creates an animal model of biliary atresia. Such mice develop clinical signs of biliary obstruction, inflammatory cell infiltration and liver fibrosis.