Zobair M. Younossi, Maria Stepanova, Nila Rafiq, Hala Makhlouf, Zahra Younoszai, Ritambhara Agrawal, Zachary Goodman – 28 February 2011 – Since the initial description of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), several sets of pathologic criteria for its diagnosis have been proposed. However, their interprotocol agreement and ability to predict long‐term liver‐related mortality (LRM) have not been demonstrated. In this study, we examined patients with biopsy‐proven nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) for whom liver biopsy slides and clinical and mortality data were available.

Wei Qiu, Jing Zhang, Mark J. Dekker, Huajin Wang, Ju Huang, John H. Brumell, Khosrow Adeli – 28 February 2011 – Induction of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress was previously shown to impair hepatic apolipoprotein B100 (apoB) production by enhancing cotranslational and posttranslational degradation of newly synthesized apoB. Here, we report the involvement of autophagy in ER stress–induced degradation of apoB and provide evidence for a significant role of autophagy in regulating apoB biogenesis in primary hepatocyte systems.

Jiabin Yan, Zuliang Jie, Lifei Hou, Joao L. Wanderley, Lynn Soong, Shalini Gupta, Suimin Qiu, Tehsheng Chan, Jiaren Sun – 28 February 2011 – The healthy adult human liver expresses low levels of major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC II) and undetectable levels of immune costimulatory molecules. However, high levels of MHC II, CD40, and B7 family molecules are expressed in the activated Kupffer cells and hepatocytes of patients with viral hepatitis. The precise role of these molecules in viral clearance and immune‐mediated liver injury is not well understood.

28 February 2011

28 February 2011

Julia di Iulio, Angela Ciuffi, Karen Fitzmaurice, Dermot Kelleher, Margalida Rotger, Jacques Fellay, Raquel Martinez, Sara Pulit, Hansjakob Furrer, Huldrych F. Günthard, Manuel Battegay, Enos Bernasconi, Patrick Schmid, Bernard Hirschel, Eleanor Barnes, Paul Klenerman, Amalio Telenti, Andri Rauch, and the Swiss HIV Cohort Study – 28 February 2011 – The identification of associations between interleukin‐28B (IL‐28B) variants and the spontaneous clearance of hepatitis C virus (HCV) raises the issues of causality and the net contribution of host genetics to the trait.

Kim M. Olthoff, Michael M. Abecassis, Jean C. Emond, Igal Kam, Robert M. Merion, Brenda W. Gillespie, Lan Tong, the Adult‐to‐Adult Living Donor Liver Transplantation Cohort Study Group – 25 February 2011 – The study objectives were to determine whether the findings of the Adult‐to‐Adult Living Donor Liver Transplantation Cohort Study (A2ALL) reflect the U.S. national experience and to define risk factors for patient mortality and graft loss in living donor liver transplantation (LDLT).

Sang Won Park, Mihwa Kim, Kevin M. Brown, Vivette D. D'Agati, H. Thomas Lee – 25 February 2011 – Hepatic ischemia and reperfusion (IR) injury is a major clinical problem that leads to frequent extrahepatic complications including intestinal dysfunction and acute kidney injury (AKI). In this study we aimed to determine the mechanisms of hepatic IR‐induced extrahepatic organ dysfunction. Mice subjected to 60 minutes of hepatic IR not only developed severe hepatic injury but also developed significant AKI and small intestinal injury.

James J. Pomposelli – 25 February 2011

Yue‐Lei Chen, Jing Lv, Xiao‐Lei Ye, Ming‐Yu Sun, Qin Xu, Cheng‐Hai Liu, Li‐Hua Min, Hui‐Ping Li, Ping Liu, Xiaoyan Ding – 25 February 2011 – Epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a physiological process that has been recognized to occur during the progression of an increasingly large number of human diseases, including liver fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma.