Juliette Martin, Olivier Maurhofer, Nadège Bellance, Giovanni Benard, Franziska Graber, Dagmar Hahn, Anne Galinier, Caroline Hora, Anirudh Gupta, Gisèle Ferrand, Hans Hoppeler, Rodrigue Rossignol, Jean‐François Dufour, Marie V. St‐Pierre – 7 September 2012 – The histidine triad nucleotide‐binding (HINT2) protein is a mitochondrial adenosine phosphoramidase expressed in the liver and pancreas. Its physiological function is unknown. To elucidate the role of HINT2 in liver physiology, the mouse Hint2 gene was deleted.

Juan E. Puche, Youngmin A. Lee, Jingjing Jiao, Costica Aloman, Maria I. Fiel, Ursula Muñoz, Thomas Kraus, Tingfang Lee, Hal F. Yee, Scott L. Friedman – 7 September 2012 – We have developed a novel model for depleting mouse hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) that has allowed us to clarify their contributions to hepatic injury and fibrosis. Transgenic (Tg) mice expressing the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene (HSV‐Tk) driven by the mouse GFAP promoter were used to render proliferating HSCs susceptible to killing in response to ganciclovir (GCV).

Junliang Fu, Zheng Zhang, Lin Zhou, Zhaorui Qi, Shaojun Xing, Jiyun Lv, Jianfei Shi, Baoyun Fu, Zhenwen Liu, Ji‐Yuan Zhang, Lei Jin, Yulai Zhao, George K.K. Lau, Jingmin Zhao, Fu‐Sheng Wang – 7 September 2012 – The role of CD4+ cytotoxic T cells (CTLs) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains obscure. This study characterized CD4+ CTLs in HCC patients and further elucidated the associations between CD4+ CTLs and HCC disease progression. In all, 547 HCC patients, 44 chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients, 86 liver cirrhosis (LC) patients, and 88 healthy individuals were enrolled in the study.

Valentina Medici, Noreene M. Shibata, Kusum K. Kharbanda, Janine M. LaSalle, Rima Woods, Sarah Liu, Jesse A. Engelberg, Sridevi Devaraj, Natalie J. Török, Joy X. Jiang, Peter J. Havel, Bo Lönnerdal, Kyoungmi Kim, Charles H. Halsted – 4 September 2012 – Hepatic methionine metabolism may play an essential role in regulating methylation status and liver injury in Wilson's disease (WD) through the inhibition of S‐adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase (SAHH) by copper (Cu) and the consequent accumulation of S‐adenosylhomocysteine (SAH).

Marcela Aparicio‐Vergara, Pascal P.H. Hommelberg, Marijke Schreurs, Nanda Gruben, Rinke Stienstra, Ronit Shiri‐Sverdlov, Niels J. Kloosterhuis, Alain de Bruin, Bart van de Sluis, Debby P.Y. Koonen, Marten H. Hofker – 3 September 2012 – Ectodomain shedding of tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR1) provides negative feedback to the inflammatory loop induced by TNFα.

Tai‐Chung Tseng, Chun‐Jen Liu, Hung‐Chih Yang, Tung‐Hung Su, Chia‐Chi Wang, Chi‐Ling Chen, Cheng‐An Hsu, Stephanie Fang‐Tzu Kuo, Chen‐Hua Liu, Pei‐Jer Chen, Ding‐Shinn Chen, Jia‐Horng Kao – 3 September 2012 – Chronic hepatitis B patients with high viral loads are at increased risk of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In patients with low viral loads, higher hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) levels have been shown to predict HCC development.

Nedim Hadžić – 3 September 2012

Frank K. Huynh, Ursula H. Neumann, Ying Wang, Brian Rodrigues, Timothy J. Kieffer, Scott D. Covey – 3 September 2012 – Obesity is highly associated with dyslipidemia and cardiovascular disease. However, the mechanism behind this association is not completely understood. The hormone leptin may be a molecular link between obesity and dysregulation of lipid metabolism. Leptin can affect lipid metabolism independent of its well‐known effects on food intake and energy expenditure, but exactly how this occurs is ill‐defined.

Kari Nejak‐Bowen, Alexander Kikuchi, Satdarshan P.S. Monga – 3 September 2012 – Wnt/β‐catenin signaling plays an important role in hepatic homeostasis, especially in liver development, regeneration, and cancer, and loss of β‐catenin signaling is often associated with increased apoptosis. To elucidate how β‐catenin may be regulating hepatocyte survival, we investigated the susceptibility of β‐catenin conditional knockout (KO) mice and their wild‐type (WT) littermates to Fas and tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α), two common pathways of hepatocyte apoptosis.

Christoph R. Werner, Daniel P. Egetemeyr, Ulrich M. Lauer, Silvio Nadalin, Alfred Königsrainer, Nisar P. Malek, Christoph P. Berg – 1 September 2012 – After liver transplantation (LT), the management of recurrent hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections still remains a major challenge. In HCV genotype 1 patients not undergoing transplantation, the introduction of protease inhibitor (PI)–based regimens has increased the sustained virological response rate significantly.