Shashi Bala, Jan Petrasek, Shiv Mundkur, Donna Catalano, Ivan Levin, Jeanine Ward, Hawau Alao, Karen Kodys, Gyongyi Szabo – 9 June 2012 – MicroRNAs are fine tuners of diverse biological responses and are expressed in various cell types of the liver. Here we hypothesized that circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) may serve as biomarkers of liver damage and inflammation.

Maria Elias‐Miró, Marta Massip‐Salcedo, Jens Raila, Florian Schweigert, Mariana Mendes‐Braz, Fernando Ramalho, Mónica B. Jiménez‐Castro, Araní Casillas‐Ramírez, Raquel Bermudo, Antoni Rimola, Juan Rodes, Carmen Peralta – 9 June 2012 – Steatotic livers show increased hepatic damage and impaired regeneration after partial hepatectomy (PH) under ischemia/reperfusion (I/R), which is commonly applied in clinical practice to reduce bleeding. The known function of retinol‐binding protein 4 (RBP4) is to transport retinol in the circulation.

Emmanuel Melloul, Dimitri Aristotle Raptis, Christian Eugen Oberkofler, Philipp Dutkowski, Mickael Lesurtel, Pierre‐Alain Clavien – 9 June 2012

Xiong Cai, Jian Zhai, David E. Kaplan, Yijun Zhang, Lining Zhou, Xutao Chen, Guangyang Qian, Qiudong Zhao, Yonghai Li, Lu Gao, Wenming Cong, Minghua Zhu, Zhenlin Yan, Lehua Shi, Dong Wu, Lixin Wei, Feng Shen, Mengchao Wu – 9 June 2012 – Hepatic progenitor cells (HPC) play important roles in both liver regeneration and carcinogenesis. Combined hepatocellular‐cholangiocarcinoma (CHC), a malignant primary liver tumor with poor prognosis, is thought to be of HPC origin. However, the prognostic significance of this etiology is not well defined.

Karolina Bojkowska, Fabio Aloisio, Marco Cassano, Adamandia Kapopoulou, Francesca Santoni de Sio, Nadine Zangger, Sandra Offner, Cristina Cartoni, Charles Thomas, Simon Quenneville, Kai Johnsson, Didier Trono – 8 June 2012 – The liver is characterized by sexually dimorphic gene expression translating into sex‐specific differences in lipid, drug, steroid hormone, and xenobiotic metabolism, with distinct responses of males and females to environmental challenges.

Giovanni Musso, Maurizio Cassader, Franco De Michieli, Floriano Rosina, Fabio Orlandi, Roberto Gambino – 8 June 2012 – Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) ranges from simple steatosis (SS) to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Though liver‐related risk seems confined to NASH, it is currently unclear whether NASH has a higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes than SS as a result of the coexistence of obesity and other cardiometabolic confounders. Adipose tissue is an emerging modulator of liver disease in NAFLD and of cardiometabolic disease in the general population.

Toru Ikegami, Ken Shirabe, Rumi Matono, Tomoharu Yoshizumi, Yuji Soejima, Hideaki Uchiyama, Hiroto Kayashima, Kazutoyo Morita, Yoshihiko Maehara – 4 June 2012 – The prevalence and clinical characteristics of bacterial pneumonia after living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) have not yet been elucidated. We performed a retrospective analysis of 346 LDLT recipients. Fifty patients (14.5%) experienced bacterial pneumonia after LDLT, and they had a higher short‐term mortality rate (42.0%) than patients with other types of bacterial infections after LDLT.

Jasmohan S. Bajaj, Leroy R. Thacker, Douglas M. Heuman, Richard K. Sterling, R. Todd Stravitz, Arun J. Sanyal, Velimir Luketic, Michael Fuchs, Ho Chong S. Gilles, James B. Wade – 4 June 2012 – Psychiatric disorders and medications may affect the cognitive performance of patients with cirrhosis and complicate the diagnosis and prediction of hepatic encephalopathy (HE).

Zeenat Safdar, Sonja Bartolome, Norman Sussman – 4 June 2012 – Portopulmonary hypertension (POPH) is a serious complication of cirrhosis that is associated with mortality beyond that predicted by the Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score. Increased pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) may be initiated by pulmonary vasoconstriction, altered levels of circulating mediators, or shear stress, and can eventually lead to the classic vascular remodeling (plexiform lesion) that characterizes POPH.

Max A. Cayo, Jun Cai, Ann DeLaForest, Fallon K. Noto, Masato Nagaoka, Brian S. Clark, Ross F. Collery, Karim Si‐Tayeb, Stephen A. Duncan – 31 May 2012 – Elevated levels of low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL‐C) in plasma are a major contributor to cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death worldwide. Genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) have identified 95 loci that associate with control of lipid/cholesterol metabolism.