Renata Pugliese, Eduardo A. Fonseca, Gilda Porta, Vera Danesi, Teresa Guimaraes, Adriana Porta, Irene K. Miura, Cristian Borges, Helry Candido, Marcel Benavides, Flavia H. Feier, Andre Godoy, Rita Antonelli Cardoso, Mario Kondo, Paulo Chapchap, Joao Seda Neto – 7 October 2013 – Ascites is the most common complication of cirrhosis and in adults it is associated with 50% mortality at 5 years if patients do not receive a liver transplant. The occurrence of hyponatremia in these patients has been associated with increased mortality on the waiting list.

Gin‐Ho Lo – 7 October 2013

Harel Dahari, Scott J. Cotler – 6 October 2013

Nobuhisa Akamatsu, Yasuhiko Sugawara, Shouichi Satou, Tetsuya Mitsui, Riki Ninomiya, Masahiko Komagome, Fumiaki Ozawa, Yoshifumi Beck – 4 October 2013 – Recent advances in liver surgery have highlighted the effects of the splenic circulation on the hepatic circulation with respect to the hepatic arterial buffer response (HABR). The aim of the present study was to investigate the actual hemodynamic effects of splenic artery embolization/ligation and splenectomy on the hepatic circulation in patients who underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy through in vivo experimental models.

Alberto Unzueta, Jorge Rakela – 4 October 2013 – Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection (genotype 3) has been described in developed countries as a cause of chronic hepatitis in recipients of solid organ transplantation (SOT), with the first cases reported in 2008. Immunosuppression seems to play a major role in the pathogenesis of chronic infections. The current gold standard for the diagnosis of HEV infection is the detection of HEV RNA in serum, stools, or both.

Michael Crawford, Geoffrey McCaughan – 4 October 2013

Odilson M. Silvestre, Alberto Q. Farias, Fernando Bacal – 4 October 2013

Jihong Ma, Chunbin Zou, Lida Guo, Danushka S. Seneviratne, Xinping Tan, Yong‐Kook Kwon, Jiyan An, Robert Bowser, Marie C. DeFrances, Reza Zarnegar – 3 October 2013 – Met, the transmembrane tyrosine kinase receptor for hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), is known to function as a potent antiapoptotic mediator in normal and neoplastic cells. Herein we report that the intracellular cytoplasmic tail of Met has evolved to harbor a tandem pair of caspase‐3 cleavage sites, which bait, trap, and disable the active site of caspase‐3, thereby blocking the execution of apoptosis.

Li Chen, Alyssa Charrier, Yu Zhou, Ruju Chen, Bo Yu, Kitty Agarwal, Hidekazu Tsukamoto, L. James Lee, Michael E. Paulaitis, David R. Brigstock – 3 October 2013 – Connective tissue growth factor (CCN2) drives fibrogenesis in hepatic stellate cells (HSC). Here we show that CCN2 up‐regulation in fibrotic or steatotic livers, or in culture‐activated or ethanol‐treated primary mouse HSC, is associated with a reciprocal down‐regulation of microRNA‐214 (miR‐214).

Mickaël Lesurtel, Dimitri A. Raptis, Emmanuel Melloul, Andrea Schlegel, Christian Oberkofler, Ashraf Mohammad El‐Badry, Annina Weber, Nicolas Mueller, Philipp Dutkowski, Pierre‐Alain Clavien – 3 October 2013 – Platelets play a critical role in liver injury and regeneration. Thrombocytopenia is associated with increases in postoperative complications after partial hepatectomy, but it is unknown whether platelet counts could also predict outcomes after transplantation, a procedure that is often performed in thrombocytopenic patients.