Stefanie Mühlfeld, Olga Domanova, Thomas Berlage, Claudia Stross, Angelika Helmer, Verena Keitel, Dieter Häussinger, Ralf Kubitz – 13 July 2012 – The sodium taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide (Ntcp) is the major bile salt uptake transporter at the sinusoidal membrane of hepatocytes. Short‐term feedback regulation of Ntcp by primary bile salts has not yet been investigated in vivo. Subcellular localization of Ntcp was analyzed in Ntcp‐transfected HepG2‐cells by flow cytometry and in immunofluorescence images from tissue sections by a new automated image analysis method.

Simon P. Fletcher, Daniel J. Chin, Donavan T. Cheng, Palanikumar Ravindran, Hans Bitter, Lore Gruenbaum, Paul J. Cote, Han Ma, Klaus Klumpp, Stephan Menne – 13 July 2012 – The woodchuck model of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection displays many characteristics of human infection and has particular value for characterizing the host immune responses during the development of chronic infection.

Naoko Kamo, Bibo Ke, Ronald W. Busuttil, Jerzy W. Kupiec‐Weglinski – 13 July 2012 – The phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN) regulates innate immune responses inversely with phosphoinositide 3‐kinase (PI3K) and its direct downstream target gene, Akt. The Forkhead box O (Foxo) transcription factors are essential in the regulation of tissue development, immune homeostasis, and cell survival.

Jasmohan S. Bajaj, Jacqueline G. O'Leary, K. Rajender Reddy, Florence Wong, Jody C. Olson, Ram M. Subramanian, Geri Brown, Nicole A. Noble, Leroy R. Thacker, Patrick S. Kamath,, on behalf of NACSELD – 13 July 2012 – Bacterial infections are an important cause of mortality in cirrhosis, but there is a paucity of multicenter studies. The aim was to define factors predisposing to infection‐related mortality in hospitalized patients with cirrhosis. A prospective, cohort study of patients with cirrhosis with infections was performed at eight North American tertiary‐care hepatology centers.

Chia‐Yang Hsu, Yun‐Hsuan Lee, Cheng‐Yuan Hsia, Yi‐Hsiang Huang, Chien‐Wei Su, Han‐Chieh Lin, Rheun‐Chuan Lee, Yi‐You Chiou, Fa‐Yauh Lee, Teh‐Ia Huo – 13 July 2012

Mei Huang, Rui Sun, Haiming Wei, Zhigang Tian – 13 July 2012 – NKG2D activation plays an important role in initiating and maintaining liver inflammation, and blockade of NKG2D recognition becomes a promising approach to alleviate liver inflammation. Treatment by silencing NKG2D ligands on hepatocytes, but not NKG2D on circulating immune cells, is more liver‐specific, and simultaneous knockdown of multiple NKG2D ligands on hepatocytes will be more efficient in liver disease intervention.

Andrew Aronsohn, Donald Jensen – 13 July 2012

Ching‐Lung Lai, Man‐Fung Yuen – 13 July 2012 – Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection is the major cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Primary prevention of hepatitis B infection by vaccination is effective in reducing the incidence of HCC. In persons with CHB infection, the two accepted treatment modalities are interferon alpha (IFN‐α) given subcutaneously for a limited period and nucleoside/nucleotide analogs given orally on a long‐term basis. These treatments are effective in suppressing viral activity and improving disease markers in short‐term studies.

Nozomu Sakai, Heather L. Van Sweringen, R. Cutler Quillin, Rebecca Schuster, John Blanchard, Justin M. Burns, Amit D. Tevar, Michael J. Edwards, Alex B. Lentsch – 10 July 2012 – Interleukin (IL)‐33 is a recently identified member of the IL‐1 family that binds to the receptor, ST2L. In the current study, we sought to determine whether IL‐33 is an important regulator in the hepatic response to ischemia/reperfusion (I/R). Male C57BL/6 mice were subjected to 90 minutes of partial hepatic ischemia, followed by up to 8 hours of reperfusion.

Tram T. Tran, Luis H. Ocampo – 6 July 2012