Alessandro Principe, Pedro Melgar‐Lesmes, Guillermo Fernández‐Varo, Luis Ruiz del Arbol, Josefa Ros, Manuel Morales‐Ruiz, Mauro Bernardi, Vicente Arroyo, Wladimiro Jiménez – 26 September 2008 – Apelin is a peptide that plays an important role in heart physiology and pathophysiology, inflammation, and angiogenesis. We evaluated whether the endogenous apelin system is involved in the pathogenesis of the hepatic remodeling and cardiovascular and renal complications occurring in advanced liver disease.

Marco Senzolo, David Patch, Diego Miotto, Cecilia Ferronato, Evangelos Cholongitas, Andrew K. Burroughs – 26 September 2008

Melania Manco, GianFranco Bottazzo – 26 September 2008

Ze‐Zhou Song – 26 September 2008

James Rochon, Petr Protiva, Leonard B. Seeff, Robert J. Fontana, Suthat Liangpunsakul, Paul B. Watkins, Timothy Davern, John G. McHutchison, Drug‐Induced Liver Injury Network (DILIN) – 26 September 2008 – The Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method (RUCAM) was developed to quantify the strength of association between a liver injury and the medication implicated as causing the injury. However, its reliability in a research setting has never been fully explored.

Mingyan Zhou, Aimin Xu, Paul K. H. Tam, Karen S. L. Lam, Lawrence Chan, Ruby L. C. Hoo, Jing Liu, Kim H. M. Chow, Yu Wang – 26 September 2008 – Adiponectin is an adipocyte‐derived hormone with a wide range of beneficial effects on obesity‐related medical complications. Numerous epidemiological investigations in diverse ethnic groups have identified a lower adiponectin level as an independent risk factor for nonalcoholic fatty liver diseases and liver dysfunctions.

Gail V. Matthews, Anchalee Avihingsanon, Sharon R. Lewin, Janaki Amin, Rungsun Rerknimitr, Panusit Petcharapirat, Pip Marks, Joe Sasadeusz, David A. Cooper, Scott Bowden, Stephen Locarnini, Kiat Ruxrungtham, Gregory J. Dore – 26 September 2008 – Coinfection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) is associated with considerable liver disease morbidity and mortality. Emerging HIV epidemics in areas of high HBV endemicity such as Asia are expanding the population with HIV/HBV coinfection.

Donna Sir, Wen‐ling Chen, Jinah Choi, Takaji Wakita, T.S. Benedict Yen, Jing‐hsiung James Ou – 26 September 2008 – Autophagy is important for cellular homeostasis and can serve as innate immunity to remove intracellular pathogens. Here, we demonstrate by a battery of morphological and biochemical assays that hepatitis C virus (HCV) induces the accumulation of autophagosomes in cells without enhancing autophagic protein degradation.

Satoshi Kuboki, Thomas Shin, Nadine Huber, Thorsten Eismann, Elizabeth Galloway, Rebecca Schuster, John Blanchard, Michael J. Edwards, Alex B. Lentsch – 26 September 2008 – CXC chemokines and their receptor, CXC chemokine receptor‐2 (CXCR2), are important components of the hepatic inflammatory response to ischemia/reperfusion (I/R). However, direct effects of CXC chemokines on hepatocytes during this response have not been studied. Wild‐type and CXCR2−/− mice were subjected to 90 minutes of partial hepatic ischemia followed by up to 96 hours of reperfusion.

Myron John Tong, Carlos Hsien, Leeyen Hsu, Hai‐En Sun, Lawrence Mitchell Blatt – 26 September 2008 – Current guidelines for treatment of chronic hepatitis B include hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) status, levels of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA, and serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) values in the setting of either chronic hepatitis or cirrhosis.