Jan Petrasek, Milan Jirsa, Jan Sperl, Libor Kozak, Pavel Taimr, Julius Spicak, Karel Filip, Pavel Trunecka – 27 December 2006 – Fulminant Wilson's disease (WD) is almost invariably fatal, and liver transplantation is the only life‐saving treatment. Decompensated chronic WD usually responds to chelation therapy. Our aim was to validate 3 published scoring systems for deciding between chelation treatment and liver transplantation in patients with chronic decompensated and fulminant WD.

Ye Htun Oo, James Neuberger – 27 December 2006

Ying Luo, Chung Mau Lo, Cindy K. Cheung, George K. Lau, Sheung Tat Fan, John Wong – 27 December 2006 – Both animal and human studies have demonstrated the adoptive transfer of immunity against hepatitis B virus (HBV) through liver transplantation that may be attributed to the presence of HBV‐specific immunocompetent cells of donor origin in liver grafts.

Lananh N. Nguyen, Momoko H. Furuya, Lawrence A. Wolfraim, Anthony P. Nguyen, Matthew S. Holdren, Jean S. Campbell, Belinda Knight, George C. T. Yeoh, Nelson Fausto, W. Tony Parks – 22 December 2006 – Oval cells are hepatocytic precursors that proliferate in late‐stage cirrhosis and that give rise to a subset of human hepatocellular carcinomas. Although liver regeneration typically occurs through replication of existing hepatocytes, oval cells proliferate only when hepatocyte proliferation is inhibited.

Eric Lévesque, Hugo Girard, Kim Journault, Johanie Lépine, Chantal Guillemette – 22 December 2006 – UDP‐glucuronosyltransferase 1A1 (UGT1A1) is involved in a wide range of biological and pharmacological processes because of its critical role in the conjugation of a diverse array of endogenous and exogenous compounds. We now describe a new UGT1A1 isoform, referred to as isoform 2 (UGT1A1_i2), encoded by a 1495‐bp complementary DNA isolated from human liver and generated by an alternative splicing event involving an additional exon found at the 3′ end of the UGT1A locus.

Tomohide Tatsumi, Tetsuo Takehara, Shinjiro Yamaguchi, Akira Sasakawa, Ryotaro Sakamori, Kazuyoshi Ohkawa, Keisuke Kohga, Akio Uemura, Norio Hayashi – 22 December 2006 – Alpha‐galactosylceramide, a glycosphingolipid, mediates interaction of dendritic cells (DCs) and NKT cells, leading to activation of both innate and acquired immunity. For cancer treatment, conventional DC‐based vaccine has been tried, but its clinical efficacy is limited against liver cancer.

Hao Yin, Linling Cheng, Robert Langenbach, Cynthia Ju – 22 December 2006 – Studies of the molecular and cellular mechanisms of concanavalin A (ConA)‐induced liver injury have provided important knowledge on the pathogenesis of many liver diseases involving hepatic inflammation. However, studies identifying hepato‐protective factors based on the mechanistic understanding of this model are lacking. Evidence suggests that certain prostaglandin (PG) products of cyclooxygenase (COX)‐1 and COX‐2 provide important anti‐inflammatory and cytoprotective functions in some pathophysiological states.

M. Kumar, S. Satapathy, R. Monga, K. Das, S. Hissar, C. Pande, B. C. Sharma, S. K. Sarin – 22 December 2006 – The role of antivirals in patients with acute viral hepatitis B (AVH‐B) has not been evaluated in controlled trials. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of lamivudine in patients with AVH‐B. AVH‐B patients with serum bilirubin of more than 5 mg/dL were randomized to receive either 100 mg of lamivudine daily for 3 months (group 1, n = 31) or placebo (group 2, n = 40).

Nadia Gorman, Adrian Zaharia, Heidi S. Trask, Juliana G. Szakacs, Nicholas J. Jacobs, Judith M. Jacobs, Dominic Balestra, Jacqueline F. Sinclair, Peter R. Sinclair – 22 December 2006 – Excess hepatic iron is known to enhance both porphyria cutanea tarda (PCT) and experimental uroporphyria. Since previous studies have suggested a role for ascorbate (AA) in suppressing uroporphyria in AA‐requiring rats (in the absence of excess iron), the present study investigated whether AA could suppress uroporphyria produced by excess hepatic iron.

Gang Zeng, Farrukh Awan, Wade Otruba, Peggy Muller, Udayan Apte, Xinping Tan, Chandrashekhar Gandhi, Anthony J. Demetris, Satdarshan P. S. Monga – 22 December 2006 – The Wnt signaling pathway is essential for a wide array of developmental and physiological processes. Wnts are extracellular ligands that bind to frizzled (Fz) receptors at the membrane, canonically inducing β‐catenin nuclear translocation and activation. Although β‐catenin has been shown to be critical in liver biology, the expression of the 19 Wnt and 10 Fz genes in liver remains undetermined.