Early gene expression profiles of patients with chronic hepatitis C treated with pegylated interferon‐alfa and ribavirin

Zobair M. Younossi, Ancha Baranova, Arian Afendy, Rochelle Collantes, Maria Stepanova, Ganiraju Manyam, Anita Bakshi, Christopher L. Sigua, Joanne P. Chan, Ayuko A. Iverson, Christopher D. Santini, Sheng‐Yung P. Chang – 24 February 2009 – Responsiveness to hepatitis C virus (HCV) therapy depends on viral and host factors. Our aim was to assess sustained virologic response (SVR)‐associated early gene expression in patients with HCV receiving pegylated interferon‐alpha2a (PEG‐IFN‐α2a) or PEG‐IFN‐α2b and ribavirin with the duration based on genotypes.

Gene expression signatures of peripheral CD4+ T cells clearly discriminate between patients with acute and chronic hepatitis B infection

Nirupma TrehanPati, Robert Geffers, Sukriti, Syed Hissar, Peggy Riese, Tanja Toepfer, Jan Buer, Manoj Kumar, Carlos A. Guzman, Shiv Kumar Sarin – 24 February 2009 – CD4+ T and regulatory T cells (Tregs) seem to play a key role in persistence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. However, the molecular events by which Tregs exert their modulatory activity are largely unknown.

Targeting transforming growth factor (TGF)‐βRI inhibits activation of β1 integrin and blocks vascular invasion in hepatocellular carcinoma

Emilia Fransvea, Antonio Mazzocca, Salvatore Antonaci, Gianluigi Giannelli – 24 February 2009 – Vascular invasion is one of the major negative prognostic factors in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), leading to cancer recurrence. To invade, HCC cells must penetrate the vessel wall, consisting of endothelial cells and extracellular matrix components, including fibronectin and fibrinogen. Employing invasive and noninvasive HCC cells, we studied the mechanism underlying vascular invasion.

NKG2D–retinoic acid early inducible‐1 recognition between natural killer cells and kupffer cells in a novel murine natural killer cell–dependent fulminant hepatitis

Xin Hou, Rongbin Zhou, Haiming Wei, Rui Sun, Zhigang Tian – 24 February 2009 – Increasing evidence suggests the contribution of natural killer (NK) cells to pathogenesis of human hepatitis, but the detailed mechanisms have yet to be clearly elucidated. In this study, injection of polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid (poly I:C) and D‐galactosamine (D‐GalN) was used to establish a novel murine fulminant hepatitis model: results showed that predepletion of either NK cells or Kupffer cells could completely abolish the liver injury.

VSL#3 probiotic treatment attenuates fibrosis without changes in steatohepatitis in a diet‐induced nonalcoholic steatohepatitis model in mice

Arumugam Velayudham, Angela Dolganiuc, Michael Ellis, Jan Petrasek, Karen Kodys, Pranoti Mandrekar, Gyongyi Szabo – 24 February 2009 – Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and its advanced stage, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), are the most common causes of chronic liver disease in the United States. NASH features the metabolic syndrome, inflammation, and fibrosis. Probiotics exhibit immunoregulatory and anti‐inflammatory activity. We tested the hypothesis that probiotic VSL#3 may ameliorate the methionine‐choline‐deficient (MCD) diet–induced mouse model of NASH.

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