Kunj K. Desai, George S. Dikdan, Asif Shareef, Baburao Koneru – 29 October 2008 – Utilization of ischemic preconditioning to ameliorate ischemia/reperfusion injury has been extensively studied in various organs and species for the past two decades. While hepatic ischemic preconditioning in animals has been largely beneficial, translational efforts in the two clinical contexts—liver resection and decreased donor liver transplantation—have yielded mixed results.

Michael von Wagner, Wolf Peter Hofmann, Gerlinde Teuber, Thomas Berg, Tobias Goeser, Ulrich Spengler, Holger Hinrichsen, Hans Weidenbach, Guido Gerken, Michael Manns, Peter Buggisch, Eva Herrmann, Stefan Zeuzem – 28 October 2008 – The impact of amantadine on virologic response rates of interferon‐based treatment of chronic hepatitis C is controversial.

Lin Wang, Huiping Dong, Carol J. Soroka, Ning Wei, James L. Boyer, Mark Hochstrasser – 28 October 2008 – The bile salt export pump (Bsep) represents the major bile salt transport system at the canalicular membrane of hepatocytes. When examined in model cell lines, genetic mutations in the BSEP gene impair its targeting and transport function, contributing to the pathogenesis of progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis type II (PFIC II).

Wei Yang, Brian L. Hood, Sara L. Chadwick, Shufeng Liu, Simon C. Watkins, Guangxiang Luo, Thomas P. Conrads, Tianyi Wang – 28 October 2008 – Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major human pathogen that causes serious illness, including acute and chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Jennifer A. Tan, Tom A. Joseph, Sammy Saab – 28 October 2008 – The prevalence of chronic hepatitis C infection in U.S. prisons is 12% to 31%. Treatment of this substantial portion of the population has been subject to much controversy, both medically and legally. Studies have demonstrated that treatment of chronic hepatitis C with pegylated interferon (PEG IFN) and ribavirin is a cost‐effective measure in the general population; however, no study has addressed whether the same is true of the prison population.

Paul B. Watkins, Paul J. Seligman, John S. Pears, Mark I. Avigan, John R. Senior – 28 October 2008 – Drug‐induced liver injury (DILI) is of major interest to hepatologists and clinicians in general, patients, government regulators, and the pharmaceutical industry. Understanding why this form of injury occurs only in certain individuals has major implications for the development and availability of drug therapies and in the prevention of these events.

Laia Vilà, Núria Roglans, Marta Alegret, Rosa María Sánchez, Manuel Vázquez‐Carrera, Juan Carlos Laguna – 28 October 2008 – There is controversy regarding whether fructose in liquid beverages constitutes another dietary ingredient of high caloric density or introduces qualitative changes in energy metabolism that further facilitate the appearance of metabolic diseases. Central to this issue is the elucidation of the molecular mechanism responsible for the metabolic alterations induced by fructose ingestion.

Diana García‐Romero, J. Anastassiou, Gillian Hart, Rajeshwar Mookerjee, Rajiv Jalan – 28 October 2008

Jeffrey D. Browning, Brian Weis, Jeannie Davis, Santhosh Satapati, Matthew Merritt, Craig R. Malloy, Shawn C. Burgess – 28 October 2008 – Carbohydrate restriction is a common weight‐loss approach that modifies hepatic metabolism by increasing gluconeogenesis (GNG) and ketosis.

Lili Zhang, Neil Theise, Michael Chua, Lola M. Reid – 28 October 2008 – Human livers contain two pluripotent progenitors: hepatic stem cells and hepatoblasts. The hepatic stem cells uniquely express the combination of epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM), neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM), cytokeratin (CK) 19, albumin ±, and are negative for α‐fetoprotein (AFP). They are precursors to hepatoblasts, which differ from hepatic stem cells in size, morphology, and in expressing the combination of EpCAM, intercellular cell adhesion molecule (ICAM‐1), CK19, albumin++, and AFP++.