Martin Wagner, Gernot Zollner, Michael Trauner – 12 January 2011 – Nuclear receptors are ligand‐activated transcriptional regulators of several key aspects of hepatic physiology and pathophysiology. As such, nuclear receptors control a large variety of metabolic processes including hepatic lipid metabolism, drug disposition, bile acid homeostasis, as well as liver regeneration, inflammation, fibrosis, cell differentiation, and tumor formation. Derangements of nuclear receptor regulation and genetic variants may contribute to the pathogenesis and progression of liver diseases.

Alessia Omenetti, Lee M. Bass, Robert A. Anders, Maria G. Clemente, Heather Francis, Cynthia D. Guy, Shannon McCall, Steve S. Choi, Gianfranco Alpini, Kathleen B. Schwarz, Anna Mae Diehl, Peter F. Whitington – 12 January 2011 – Biliary atresia (BA) is notable for marked ductular reaction and rapid development of fibrosis. Activation of the Hedgehog (Hh) pathway promotes the expansion of populations of immature epithelial cells that coexpress mesenchymal markers and may be profibrogenic.

Won‐Il Jeong, Ogyi Park, Yang‐Gun Suh, Jin‐Seok Byun, So‐Young Park, Earl Choi, Ja‐Kyung Kim, Hyojin Ko, Hua Wang, Andrew M. Miller, Bin Gao – 12 January 2011 – Activation of innate immunity (natural killer [NK] cell/interferon‐γ [IFN‐γ]) has been shown to play an important role in antiviral and antitumor defenses as well as antifibrogenesis. However, little is known about the regulation of innate immunity during chronic liver injury.

Liang Shen – 12 January 2011

Anna Alisi, Melania Manco, Marco Pezzullo, Valerio Nobili – 12 January 2011

David E. J. Jones, George Mells – 12 January 2011

Gail V. Matthews, Gregory J. Dore – 12 January 2011

Liang Bai, Yuzhi Jia, Navin Viswakarma, Jiansheng Huang, Aurore Vluggens, Nathan E. Wolins, Nadereh Jafari, M. Sambasiva Rao, Jayme Borensztajn, Gongshe Yang, Janardan K. Reddy – 12 January 2011 – Peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor‐γ (PPARγ), a nuclear receptor, when overexpressed in liver stimulates the induction of adipocyte‐specific and lipogenesis‐related genes and causes hepatic steatosis.

Jasmohan S. Bajaj, Oliviero Riggio – 12 January 2011

Ingrid Imhof, Peter Simmonds – 11 January 2011 – Protease inhibitors (PIs) have proven to be effective adjuncts to interferon/ribavirin treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections. Little clinical or in vitro data exists, however, on their effectiveness for nontype 1 genotypes that predominate in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and most of Asia. NS3 protease and NS4A genes from genotypes 1‐6 were inserted into the JFH clone to generate replication‐competent intergenotype chimeras. Susceptibility to PIs was determined by replication and infectivity assays.