Sui Peng, Ye Wang, Hong Peng, Dong Chen, Shunli Shen, Baogang Peng, Minhu Chen, Riccardo Lencioni, Ming Kuang – 22 May 2014 – Tumor cells express vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) that can activate VEGF receptors (VEGFRs) on or within tumor cells to promote growth in an angiogenesis‐independent fashion; however, this autocrine VEGF pathway has not been reported in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Sorafenib, an angiogenic inhibitor, is the only drug approved for use in advanced HCC patients. Yet the treatment efficacy is diverse and the mechanism behind it remains undetermined.

Reena Mourya, Kazuhiko Bessho, Pranavkumar Shivakumar, Jorge A. Bezerra – 21 May 2014

Benedikt Schaefer, Michael Steurer, Bernhard Glodny, Daniel Neureiter, Patrizia Moser, Livia Dorn, Wolfgang Vogel, Heinz Zoller – 21 May 2014

Preeti Viswanathan, Sorabh Kapoor, Vinay Kumaran, Brigid Joseph, Sanjeev Gupta – 21 May 2014 – Engraftment of transplanted cells is critical for liver‐directed cell therapy, but most transplanted cells are rapidly cleared from liver sinusoids by proinflammatory cytokines/chemokines/receptors after activation of neutrophils or Kupffer cells (KCs). To define whether tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF‐α) served roles in cell‐transplantation–induced hepatic inflammation, we used the TNF‐α antagonist, etanercept (ETN), for studies in syngeneic rat hepatocyte transplantation systems.

Antonios Chatzigeorgiou, Kyoung‐Jin Chung, Ruben Garcia‐Martin, Vasileia‐Ismini Alexaki, Anne Klotzsche‐von Ameln, Julia Phieler, David Sprott, Waldemar Kanczkowski, Theodora Tzanavari, Mohktar Bdeir, Sibylle Bergmann, Marc Cartellieri, Michael Bachmann, Polyxeni Nikolakopoulou, Andreas Androutsellis‐Theotokis, Gabriele Siegert, Stefan R. Bornstein, Michael H. Muders, Louis Boon, Katia P.

Ana Lleo, Weici Zhang, W. Hayes McDonald, Erin H. Seeley, Patrick S.C. Leung, Ross L. Coppel, Aftab A. Ansari, David H. Adams, Simon Afford, Pietro Invernizzi, M. Eric Gershwin – 20 May 2014 – Shotgun proteomics is a powerful analytic method to characterize complex protein mixtures in combination with multidimensional liquid chromatography‐tandem mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS).

Rui Dong, Gong Chen, Shan Zheng, Harry Hua‐Xiang Xia – 20 May 2014

Laure Elkrief, Pascale Chouinard, Noelle Bendersky, David Hajage, Béatrice Larroque, Gérard Babany, Blaise Kutala, Claire Francoz, Nathalie Boyer, Richard Moreau, François Durand, Patrick Marcellin, Pierre‐Emmanuel Rautou, Dominique Valla – 20 May 2014 – In patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC), cirrhosis is associated with age, gender, diabetes, alcohol abuse, and coinfection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or hepatitis B virus (HBV). The effect of these factors on the outcome of cirrhosis is unknown.

Hiroshi Suemizu, Kazuaki Nakamura, Kenji Kawai, Yuichiro Higuchi, Mureo Kasahara, Junichiro Fujimoto, Akito Tanoue, Masato Nakamura – 18 May 2014 – The pathogenesis of biliary atresia (BA), which leads to end‐stage cirrhosis in most patients, has been thought to inflame and obstruct the intrahepatic and extrahepatic bile ducts. BA is not believed to be caused by abnormalities in parenchymal hepatocytes. However, there has been no report of a detailed analysis of hepatocytes buried in the cirrhotic livers of patients with BA.

Barry Schlansky, Yiyi Chen, David L. Scott, Donald Austin, Willscott E. Naugler – 18 May 2014 – Recipients of liver transplantation (LT) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have an 8% to 20% risk of HCC recurrence. Single‐center studies suggest that a period of waiting after HCC therapy may facilitate the selection of patients at low risk for post‐LT HCC recurrence and mortality. We evaluated whether a longer waiting time after Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease (MELD) prioritization for HCC predicts longer post‐LT survival.