Vincenza Calvaruso, Andrew Kenneth Burroughs, Richard Standish, Pinelopi Manousou, Federica Grillo, Gioacchino Leandro, Sergio Maimone, Maria Pleguezuelo, Ilias Xirouchakis, Gian Piero Guerrini, David Patch, Dominic Yu, James O'Beirne, Amar Paul Dhillon – 27 March 2009 – Histopathological scoring of disease stage uses descriptive categories without measuring the amount of fibrosis. Collagen, the major component of fibrous tissue, can be quantified by computer‐assisted digital image analysis (DIA) using histological sections.

Jun Wu, Zhongji Meng, Min Jiang, Rongjuan Pei, Martin Trippler, Ruth Broering, Agnes Bucchi, Jan‐Peter Sowa, Ulf Dittmer, Dongliang Yang, Michael Roggendorf, Guido Gerken, Mengji Lu, Joerg F. Schlaak – 27 March 2009 – We have previously shown that Toll‐like receptor (TLR)‐activated murine nonparenchymal liver cells [(NPC); Kupffer cells (KC), liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSEC)] can suppress hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate whether HBV has the ability to counteract the TLR‐mediated control of its replication.

Miki Murata, Koichi Matsuzaki, Katsunori Yoshida, Go Sekimoto, Yoshiya Tahashi, Shigeo Mori, Yoshiko Uemura, Noriko Sakaida, Junichi Fujisawa, Toshihito Seki, Kazuki Kobayashi, Koutaro Yokote, Kazuhiko Koike, Kazuichi Okazaki – 27 March 2009 – Hepatitis B virus X (HBx) protein is suspected to participate in oncogenesis during chronic hepatitis B progression. Transforming growth factor β (TGF‐β) signaling involves both tumor suppression and oncogenesis.

Sanjoy Roychowdhury, Megan R. McMullen, Michele T. Pritchard, Amy G. Hise, Nico van Rooijen, M. Edward Medof, Abram B. Stavitsky, Laura E. Nagy – 27 March 2009 – The innate immune system has been implicated in the pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease. Although innate immunity is usually considered an early response to injury, previous work implicating innate immunity in ethanol‐induced liver injury focuses primarily on long‐term ethanol exposure.

Shailendra Kapoor – 27 March 2009

Tae‐Young Na, Young Kee Shin, Kyung Jin Roh, Shin‐Ae Kang, Il Hong, Sae Jin Oh, Je Kyung Seong, Cheol Keun Park, Yoon La Choi, Mi‐Ock Lee – 27 March 2009 – Although hepatitis B virus X protein (HBx) has been implicated in abnormal lipid metabolism in hepatitis B virus (HBV)–associated hepatic steatosis, its underlying molecular mechanism remains unclear. Liver X receptor (LXR) plays an important role in regulating the expression of genes involved in hepatic lipogenesis. Here we demonstrate that LXRα and LXRβ mediate HBV‐associated hepatic steatosis.

Sin‐Ae Lee, Hyung Won Ryu, Young Mee Kim, Suyong Choi, Mi Ji Lee, Tae Kyoung Kwak, Hyeon Jung Kim, Moonjae Cho, Ki Hun Park, Jung Weon Lee – 27 March 2009 – We previously reported that the four‐transmembrane L6 family member 5 (TM4SF5) was highly expressed in hepatocarcinoma, induced morphological elongation and epithelial‐mesenchymal transition, and caused abnormal cell growth in multilayers in vitro and tumor formation in vivo.

Terry Therneau – 27 March 2009

Shunsuke Ura, Masao Honda, Taro Yamashita, Teruyuki Ueda, Hajime Takatori, Ryuhei Nishino, Hajime Sunakozaka, Yoshio Sakai, Katsuhisa Horimoto, Shuichi Kaneko – 27 March 2009 – MicroRNA (miRNA) plays an important role in the pathology of various diseases, including infection and cancer.

Marc Mejias, Ester Garcia‐Pras, Carolina Tiani, Rosa Miquel, Jaime Bosch, Mercedes Fernandez – 27 March 2009 – Portal hypertension, the most important complication in patients with cirrhosis of the liver, is a serious and life‐threatening disease for which there are few therapeutic options.