Valerio Nobili, Guido Carpino, Anna Alisi, Antonio Franchitto, Gianfranco Alpini, Rita De Vito, Paolo Onori, Domenico Alvaro, Eugenio Gaudio – 29 March 2012 – Hepatic progenitor cells (HPCs) play a major role in liver repair and regeneration. We evaluated HPC involvement in pediatric nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (pNAFLD). Thirty biopsies of consecutive children and adolescents with untreated NAFLD (19 with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis [NASH] and 11 without NASH) were studied using immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence.

Bo Kong, Li Wang, John Y.L. Chiang, Youcai Zhang, Curtis D. Klaassen, Grace L. Guo – 29 March 2012 – Activation of farnesoid X receptor (Fxr, Nr1h4) is a major mechanism in suppressing bile‐acid synthesis by reducing the expression levels of genes encoding key bile‐acid synthetic enzymes (e.g., cytochrome P450 [CYP]7A1/Cyp7a1 and CYP8B1/Cyp8b1). FXR‐mediated induction of hepatic small heterodimer partner (SHP/Shp, Nr0b2) and intestinal fibroblast growth factor 15 (Fgf15; FGF19 in humans) has been shown to be responsible for this suppression.

Giulio Marchesini, Gabriele Forlani – 27 March 2012

Sylvie Lagaye, Hong Shen, Bertrand Saunier, Michelina Nascimbeni, Jesintha Gaston, Pierre Bourdoncle, Laurent Hannoun, Pierre‐Philippe Massault, Anaïs Vallet‐Pichard, Vincent Mallet, Stanislas Pol – 27 March 2012 – The development of human cultured hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication‐permissive hepatocarcinoma cell lines has provided important new virological tools to study the mechanisms of HCV infection; however, this experimental model remains distantly related to physiological and pathological conditions.

Justin M. Belcher, Guadalupe Garcia‐Tsao, Arun J. Sanyal, Harjit Bhogal, Joseph K. Lim, Naheed Ansari, Steven G. Coca, Chirag R. Parikh, for the TRIBE‐AKI Consortium – 27 March 2012 – Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common and devastating complication in patients with cirrhosis. However, the definitions of AKI employed in studies involving patients with cirrhosis have not been standardized, lack sensitivity, and are often limited to narrow clinical settings.

See Ching Chan, Sheung Tat Fan, Kenneth S. H. Chok, William W. Sharr, Wing Chiu Dai, James Y. Y. Fung, Kwok Yin Chan, Dharmesh J. Balsarkar, Chung Mau Lo – 27 March 2012 – In living donor liver transplantation (LDLT), a right liver graft is larger than a left liver graft and hence leads to better recipient survival. However, in comparison with donor left hepatectomy, donor right hepatectomy carries a higher donor risk.

Naim Alkhouri, Ariel E. Feldstein – 27 March 2012

Mónica Guevara – 27 March 2012

Binita M. Kamath, Wanrong Yin, Heather Miller, Ravinder Anand, Elizabeth B. Rand, Estella Alonso, John Bucuvalas, for Studies of Pediatric Liver Transplantation – 27 March 2012 – Alagille syndrome (ALGS) is a multisystem disorder that manifests as childhood cholestasis. Reports of liver transplantation (LT) for patients with ALGS have come largely from single centers, which have reported survival rates of 57% to 79%. The aim of this study was to determine LT outcomes for patients with ALGS.

Wellington Andraus, Vicenzo Pugliese, Rafael Pecora, Luiz Augusto C. D'Albuquerque – 27 March 2012