Mehmet Uzunel, Haxiaobieke Kasimu, Meghnad Joshi, Xupeng Ge, Jining Liu, Bo Xu, Marie Jaksch, Carl Jorns, Grzegorz Nowak, Suchitra Sumitran‐Holgersson – 24 November 2008 – The polymorphic major histocompatibility complex class I–related chain A (MICA) antigen is being increasingly recognized as a potential target molecule for immune cells during allograft rejection. Here we studied whether MICA is a target antigen for antibodies in liver transplant patients.

James D. Perkins – 24 November 2008

Philip Meuleman, Joseph Hesselgesser, Matthew Paulson, Thomas Vanwolleghem, Isabelle Desombere, Hans Reiser, Geert Leroux‐Roels – 24 November 2008 – The viral life cycle of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been studied mainly using different in vitro cell culture models. Studies using pseudoviral particles (HCVpp) and more recently cell culture–derived virus (HCVcc) suggest that at least three host cell molecules are important for HCV entry in vitro: the tetraspanin CD81, the scavenger receptor class B member I, and the tight junction protein Claudin‐1.

Wei Qiu, Lisa Federico, Mark Naples, Rita Kohen Avramoglu, Reza Meshkani, Jing Zhang, Julie Tsai, Mahmood Hussain, Kezhi Dai, Jahangir Iqbal, Christopher D. Kontos, Yasuo Horie, Akira Suzuki, Khosrow Adeli – 24 November 2008 – Hepatic apolipoprotein B (apoB) lipoprotein production is metabolically regulated via the phosphoinositide 3‐kinase cascade; however, the role of the key negative regulator of this pathway, the tumor suppressor phosphatase with tensin homology (PTEN), is unknown.

Douglas G. Farmer, Fady Kaldas, Dean Anselmo, Masamichi Katori, Xiu‐Da Shen, Charles Lassman, Marian Kaldas, Martine Clozel, Ronald W. Busuttil, Jerzy Kupiec‐Weglinski – 24 November 2008 – This study investigated the effects of dual endothelin (ET) receptor blockade in rat models of liver ischemia and reperfusion injury (IRI).

Tatsuya Orimo, Hidenori Ojima, Nobuyoshi Hiraoka, Shigeru Saito, Tomoo Kosuge, Tatsuhiko Kakisaka, Hideki Yokoo, Kazuaki Nakanishi, Toshiya Kamiyama, Satoru Todo, Setsuo Hirohashi, Tadashi Kondo – 24 November 2008 – Histological differentiation is a major pathological parameter associated with poor prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the molecular signature underlying HCC differentiation may involve key proteins potentially affecting the malignant characters of HCC.

Francisco Javier Cubero, Natalia Nieto – 24 November 2008 – Because of the contribution of ethanol and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) to alcoholic liver disease, we investigated whether chronic ethanol administration and arachidonic acid (AA) could synergistically mediate Kupffer cell (KC) activation and modulate the stellate cell (HSC) fibrogenic response.

Ulrich Thalheimer, Jaime Bosch, David Patch, Andrew Burroughs – 24 November 2008

Rajeev Sharma, Pallawi Torka – 24 November 2008

Guadalupe Garcia‐Tsao, Chirag R. Parikh, Antonella Viola – 24 November 2008 – Acute renal failure (ARF), recently renamed acute kidney injury (AKI), is a relatively frequent problem, occurring in approximately 20% of hospitalized patients with cirrhosis. Although serum creatinine may underestimate the degree of renal dysfunction in cirrhosis, measures to diagnose and treat AKI should be made in patients in whom serum creatinine rises abruptly by 0.3 mg/dL or more (≥26.4 μmol/L) or increases by 150% or more (1.5‐fold) from baseline.