Albert J. Czaja – 28 October 2008 – The diagnostic criteria for autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) have been codified by an international panel, and a revision of the original scoring system based on 12 clinical components has been promulgated. A simplified scoring system has been proposed recently that is based on four clinical components. The goals of this study were to compare the performance parameters of the revised original and the simplified scoring systems and to determine the prowess of each as a diagnostic instrument.

Vikram Bhatia, Amit Singhal, Subrat Kumar Panda, Subrat Kumar Acharya – 28 October 2008 – Pregnant patients with acute liver failure (ALF) are believed to have a worse outcome than nonpregnant women and men with ALF. However objective data supporting this supposition are scant. Therefore, the current study compared the outcome, complications, and causes of ALF among pregnant women and girls with age‐matched nonpregnant women and girls and men and boys with ALF.

Yan‐Dong Wang, Wei‐Dong Chen, Meihua Wang, Donna Yu, Barry M. Forman, Wendong Huang – 28 October 2008 – The farnesoid X receptor (FXR) is a nuclear receptor that plays key roles in hepatoprotection by maintaining the homeostasis of liver metabolism. FXR null mice display strong hepatic inflammation and develop spontaneous liver tumors. In this report, we demonstrate that FXR is a negative modulator of nuclear factor κB (NF‐κB)–mediated hepatic inflammation.

Marlyn J. Mayo, Julie Parkes, Beverley Adams‐Huet, Burton Combes, A. S. Mills, Rodney S. Markin, Raphael Rubin, Donald Wheeler, Melissa Contos, A. B. West, Sandra Saldana, Yonas Getachew, Robert Butsch, Velimir Luketic, Marion Peters, Adrian Di Bisceglie, Nathan Bass, John Lake, Thomas Boyer, Enrique Martinez, James Boyer, Guadalupe Garcia‐Tsao, David Barnes, William M. Rosenberg – 28 October 2008 – Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is sometimes diagnosed based on a positive antimitochondrial antibody in the appropriate clinical setting without a liver biopsy.

Joy X. Jiang, Kenichiro Mikami, Vijay H. Shah, Natalie J. Torok – 28 October 2008 – Leptin, a profibrogenic cytokine, plays an important role in the development of non‐alcoholic steatohepatitis. Leptin also regulates immune responses, including macrophage phagocytic activity. Stellate cells are key elements in liver fibrogenesis, and previously we have demonstrated that phagocytosis of apoptotic bodies by stellate cells is profibrogenic.

Guadalupe Garcia‐Tsao, Karen L. Swanson – 28 October 2008

Paul D. Berk – 28 October 2008

Barbara H. McGovern, Barham K. Abu Dayyeh, Raymond T. Chung – 28 October 2008 – The development of specifically targeted antiviral agents against hepatitis C is a major therapeutic advance that promises to markedly improve treatment response rates in patients with chronic infection. However, rapid emergence of drug resistance has already been described, the consequences of which are not yet understood.

Gunda Millonig, Frank M. Reimann, Stephanie Friedrich, Hamidreza Fonouni, Arianeb Mehrabi, Markus W. Büchler, Helmut Karl Seitz, Sebastian Mueller – 28 October 2008 – Transient elastography (FibroScan [FS]) is a novel non‐invasive tool to assess liver fibrosis/cirrhosis. However, it remains to be determined if other liver diseases such as extrahepatic cholestasis interfere with fibrosis assessment because liver stiffness is indirectly measured by the propagation velocity of an ultrasound wave within the liver.

Silvia Martin‐Lluesma, Céline Schaeffer, Eva Isabelle Robert, Pieter Cornelis van Breugel, Olivier Leupin, Olivier Hantz, Michel Strubin – 28 October 2008 – Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a leading cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but its role in the transformation process remains unclear. HBV encodes a small protein, known as HBx, which is required for infection and has been implicated in hepatocarcinogenesis. Here we show that HBx induces lagging chromosomes during mitosis, which in turn leads to formation of aberrant mitotic spindles and multinucleated cells.