Jiyoung Lee, Sunmi Seok, Pengfei Yu, Kyungsu Kim, Zachary Smith, Marcelo Rivas‐Astroza, Sheng Zhong, Jongsook Kim Kemper – 25 January 2012 – The nuclear bile acid receptor, farnesoid X receptor (FXR), is an important transcriptional regulator of liver metabolism. Despite recent advances in understanding its functions, how FXR regulates genomic targets and whether the transcriptional regulation by FXR is altered in obesity remain largely unknown.

Pau Sancho‐Bru, José Altamirano, Daniel Rodrigo‐Torres, Mar Coll, Cristina Millán, Juan José Lozano, Rosa Miquel, Vicente Arroyo, Juan Caballería, Pere Ginès, Ramon Bataller – 25 January 2012 – Alcoholic hepatitis (AH) is a severe condition developed in patients with underlying alcoholic liver disease. Ductular reaction has been associated with chronic alcohol consumption but there is no information regarding the extent of liver progenitor cell (LPC) proliferation in AH. The aim of this study was to investigate LPC markers in AH and its correlation with disease severity.

Nicolás Merchante, Antonio Rivero‐Juárez, Francisco Téllez, Dolores Merino, Maria José Ríos‐Villegas, Manuel Márquez‐Solero, Mohamed Omar, Juan Macías, Ángela Camacho, Montserrat Pérez‐Pérez, Jesús Gómez‐Mateos, Antonio Rivero, Juan Antonio Pineda, on behalf of the Grupo Andaluz para el Estudio de las Hepatitis Víricas (HEPAVIR) de la Sociedad Andaluza de Enfermedades Infecciosas (SAEI) – 25 January 2012 – Our aim was to assess the predictive value of liver stiffness (LS), measured by transient elastography (TE), for clinical outcome in human immunodeficiency virus / hepatitis C virus (HIV/

Angela L. Rasmussen, Nicolas Tchitchek, Nathan J. Susnow, Alexei L. Krasnoselsky, Deborah L. Diamond, Matthew M. Yeh, Sean C. Proll, Marcus J. Korth, Kathie‐Anne Walters, Sharon Lederer, Anne M. Larson, Robert L. Carithers, Arndt Benecke, Michael G. Katze – 25 January 2012 – Liver failure resulting from chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major cause for liver transplantation worldwide. Recurrent infection of the graft is universal in HCV patients after transplant and results in a rapid progression to severe fibrosis and end‐stage liver disease in one third of all patients.

Qing‐Bing Wang, Hui Zhu, Hai‐Ling Liu, Bei Zhang – 25 January 2012 – A meta‐analysis was performed to assess and compare the accuracies of magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) and diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI) for the staging of hepatic fibrosis. Online journal databases and a manual search from January 2000 to May 2011 were used. We identified 41 studies, but only 14 met the criteria to perform a meta‐analysis assessing MRE (five trials) or DWI (10 trials). Fibrosis was categorized by redistribution into five stages according to histopathological description.

Ashley M. Lakner, Nury M. Steuerwald, Tracy L. Walling, Sriparna Ghosh, Ting Li, Iain H. McKillop, Mark W. Russo, Herbert L. Bonkovsky, Laura W. Schrum – 25 January 2012 – Hepatic stellate cell (HSC) activation is a pivotal event in initiation and progression of hepatic fibrosis and a major contributor to collagen deposition driven by transforming growth factor beta (TGF‐β). MicroRNAs (miRs), small noncoding RNAs modulating messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein expression, have emerged as key regulatory molecules in chronic liver disease.

Linkang Zhou, Li Xu, Jing Ye, De Li, Wenshan Wang, Xuanhe Li, Lizhen Wu, Hui Wang, Feifei Guan, Peng Li – 25 January 2012 – High levels of dietary saturated fat have been closely associated with the development of hepatic steatosis, but the factors that mediate this process remain elusive. Here, we observed that the level of cell death‐inducing DNA fragmentation factor‐alpha‐like effector a (Cidea) expression was highly correlated with the severity of hepatic steatosis in humans.

Teresa Pollicino, Giuliana Amaddeo, Agnese Restuccia, Giuseppina Raffa, Angela Alibrandi, Giuseppina Cutroneo, Angelo Favaloro, Sergio Maimone, Giovanni Squadrito, Giovanni Raimondo – 23 January 2012 – To evaluate whether hepatitis B virus (HBV) preS/S gene variability has any impact on serum hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) levels and to analyze the replication capacity of naturally occurring preS/S variants, sera from 40 untreated patients with HBV‐related chronic liver disease (hepatitis B e antigen [HBeAg]‐positive, n = 11; HBeAg‐negative, n = 29) were virologically characterized.

Wen Wen, Jin Ding, Wen Sun, Jing Fu, Yao Chen, Kun Wu, Beifang Ning, Tao Han, Lei Huang, Cheng Chen, Dong Xie, Zhong Li, Gensheng Feng, Mengchao Wu, Weifen Xie, Hongyang Wang – 23 January 2012 – Cyclin G1 deficiency is associated with reduced incidence of carcinogen‐induced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but its function in HCC progression remains obscure. We report a critical role of cyclin G1 in HCC metastasis. Elevated expression of cyclin G1 was detected in HCCs (60.6%), and its expression levels were even higher in portal vein tumor thrombus.

Christian Toso, Elise Dupuis‐Lozeron, Pietro Majno, Thierry Berney, Norman M. Kneteman, Thomas Perneger, Philippe Morel, Gilles Mentha, Christophe Combescure – 23 January 2012 – In many countries, the allocation of liver grafts is based on the Model of End‐stage Liver Disease (MELD) score and the use of exception points for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). With this strategy, HCC patients have easier access to transplantation than non‐HCC ones.