James E. Everhart, Elizabeth C. Wright – 19 December 2012 – Increased γ‐glutamyl transferase (GGT) activity is associated with liver injury and with mortality in the general population. Less is known about its association with chronic hepatitis C (HCV) outcomes. We examined GGT as a predictor of both virological response to treatment and long‐term clinical outcomes in the Hepatitis C Anti‐viral Treatment Against Cirrhosis Trial (HALT‐C).

Minjun Chen, Jürgen Borlak, Weida Tong – 19 December 2012 – Drug‐induced liver injury (DILI) is a leading cause of drug failure in clinical trials and a major reason for drug withdrawals from the market. Although there is evidence that dosages of ≥100 mg/day are associated with increased risk for hepatotoxicity, many drugs are safe at such dosages. There is an unmet need to predict risk for DILI more reliably, and lipophilicity might be a contributing factor.

Na Cheng, Yandong Li, Ze‐Guang Han – 19 December 2012 – Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common cancers and shows a propensity to metastasize and infiltrate adjacent and more distant tissues. However, the mechanisms that contribute to tumor metastasis remain unclear. Here we evaluate the effect of Argonaute2 (Ago2), a member of the Ago gene family that plays a role in short interfering RNA‐mediated gene silencing, on HCC tumorigenesis, and metastasis. We found that Ago2 was frequently up‐regulated in HCC specimens compared to that in corresponding adjacent nontumor liver.

Jiansheng Huang, Emily Barr, David A. Rudnick – 19 December 2012 – The studies reported here were undertaken to define the regulation and functional importance of zinc‐dependent histone deacetylase (Zn‐HDAC) activity during liver regeneration using the mouse partial hepatectomy (PH) model. The results showed that hepatic HDAC activity was significantly increased in nuclear and cytoplasmic fractions following PH.

Shao‐Jung Lo, Li‐Ching Fan, Yow‐Fu Tsai, Kuo‐Yang Lin, Hsiao‐Ling Huang, Tong‐Hong Wang, Hsuan Liu, Tse‐Chin Chen, Shiu‐Fen Huang, Chee‐Jen Chang, Yu‐Jr Lin, Benjamin Yat‐Ming Yung, Sen‐Yung Hsieh – 19 December 2012 – Death evasion is crucial for both carcinogenesis and resistance to anticancer therapies. Recently, we identified nucleophosmin (NPM) as a key factor counteracting death stimuli in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells. Here we report the identification of a novel NPM‐BCL2‐associated X protein (BAX) pathway orchestrating death evasion in human HCC cells.

James E. Everhart, Elizabeth C. Wright – 19 December 2012 – Increased γ‐glutamyl transferase (GGT) activity is associated with liver injury and with mortality in the general population. Less is known about its association with chronic hepatitis C (HCV) outcomes. We examined GGT as a predictor of both virological response to treatment and long‐term clinical outcomes in the Hepatitis C Anti‐viral Treatment Against Cirrhosis Trial (HALT‐C).

Sanjoy Roychowdhury, Megan R. McMullen, Sorana G. Pisano, Xiuli Liu, Laura E. Nagy – 14 December 2012 – Hepatocyte cell death via apoptosis and necrosis are major hallmarks of ethanol‐induced liver injury. However, inhibition of apoptosis is not sufficient to prevent ethanol‐induced hepatocyte injury or inflammation. Because receptor‐interacting protein kinase (RIP) 3–mediated necroptosis, a nonapoptotic cell death pathway, is implicated in a variety of pathological conditions, we tested the hypothesis that ethanol‐induced liver injury is RIP3‐dependent and RIP1‐independent.

Flavia H. Feier, Joao Seda Neto, Gilda Porta, Eduardo A. Fonseca, Rodrigo Vincenzi, Helry L. Cândido, Marcel Benavides, Bernardo Ketzer, Renata Pugliese, Irene K. Miura, Vera Baggio, Teresa Guimarães, Adriana Porta, Gustavo Foronda, Enis Donizete, Jose P. da Silva, Lucilia Faria, Mario Kondo, Paulo Chapchap – 13 December 2012 – The association of biliary atresia (BA) with congenital heart diseases has been extensively described, and there are a number of reports on the outcomes of patients in this group who undergo liver transplantation (LT).

Gregory T. Everson, John C. Hoefs, Claus U. Niemann, Kim M. Olthoff, Robert Dupuis, Shannon Lauriski, Andrea Herman, Norah Milne, Brenda W. Gillespie, Nathan P. Goodrich, James E. Everhart – 13 December 2012 – We quantified the rates of hepatic regeneration and functional recovery for 6 months after right hepatic lobectomy in living donors for liver transplantation.

Josh Levitsky, Gabriel C. Oniscu – 12 December 2012 – From May 16–19, 2012, the International Liver Transplantation Society held its annual congress in San Francisco, CA. More than 1300 registrants attended the meeting, which included a premeeting conference entitled Balancing Risk in Liver Transplantation, focused topic sessions, and a variety of oral and poster presentations. This report is not all‐inclusive and focuses on specific research abstracts on key topics in liver transplantation.