François Penin, Jean Dubuisson, Felix A. Rey, Darius Moradpour, Jean‐Michel Pawlotsky – 5 January 2004 – Hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes acute and chronic liver disease in humans, including chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Studies of this virus have been hampered by the lack of a productive cell culture system; most information thus has been obtained from analysis of the HCV genome, heterologous expression systems, in vitro and in vivo models, and structural analyses.

Alessia Ciancio, Antonina Smedile, Mario Rizzetto, Marco Lagget, John Gerin, Brent Korba – 5 January 2004 – Numerous studies have shown that resistance to long‐term lamivudine therapy occurs in as many as ⅔ of hepatitis B virus (HBV) chronic carriers. Additional studies have shown that reversion of HBV mutations in the precore/core promoter region conferring an HBeAg‐negative phenotype/genotype can occur in up to 30% of lamivudine‐treated patients.

Gregory D. Kirk, Olufunmilayo A. Lesi, Maimuna Mendy, Aliu O. Akano, Omar Sam, James J. Goedert, Pierre Hainaut, Andrew J. Hall, Hilton Whittle, Ruggero Montesano – 5 January 2004 – Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common cancer in The Gambia. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is endemic, with 15% to 20% of the population being chronic carriers, whereas hepatitis C virus (HCV) prevalence is low. We recruited 216 incident cases of HCC and 408 controls from three sites.

Michael Torbenson, Rajesh Kannangai, Jacquie Astemborski, Steffanie A. Strathdee, David Vlahov, David L. Thomas – 5 January 2004 – Occult hepatitis B is defined by the presence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in a serum or liver in the absence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). The prevalence and clinical correlates of occult hepatitis B remain incompletely defined. A cross‐sectional study was performed to determine the prevalence of occult hepatitis B in a high‐risk cohort composed of 188 injection drug users in Baltimore, Maryland.

Frank Lammert, David Q.‐H. Wang, Sonja Hillebrandt, Andreas Geier, Peter Fickert, Michael Trauner, Siegfried Matern, Beverly Paigen, Martin C. Carey – 5 January 2004 – Previously, we identified needle‐like and filamentous, putatively “anhydrous” cholesterol crystallization in vitro at very low phospholipid concentrations in model and native biles. Our aim now was to address whether spontaneous gallstone formation occurs in Mdr2 (Abcb4) knockout mice that are characterized by phospholipid‐deficient bile.

Lizhe Xu, Michael Sakalian, Zhiwei Shen, George Loss, James Neuberger, Andrew Mason – 5 January 2004 – Patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) have both serologic and tissue evidence of infection. A recently identified human betaretrovirus was originally cloned from the biliary epithelium cDNA library of a patient with PBC. By conducting a BLASTN search, the initial partial pol gene fragment was found to have 95% to 97% nucleotide homology with mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) and with retrovirus sequences derived from human breast cancer samples.

Bernhard Zöllner, Jörg Petersen, Elisabeth Puchhammer‐Stöckl, Josef Kletzmayr, Martina Sterneck, Lutz Fischer, Matthias Schröter, Rainer Laufs, Heinz‐Hubert Feucht – 5 January 2004 – Viral differences among lamivudine resistant hepatitis B (HBV) genotypes have not been yet investigated. Therefore, we analyzed the characteristics of these viral strains in vivo. Forty‐one patients carrying lamivudine resistant HBV were enrolled. Twenty‐six patients (63%) carried resistant HBV genotype A (group A) and 15 patients (37%) carried resistant HBV genotype D (group D).

Fausto Andreola, Diego F. Calvisi, Guillermo Elizondo, Sonia B. Jakowlew, Jennifer Mariano, Frank J. Gonzalez, Luigi M. De Luca – 5 January 2004 – Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR)‐null mice display a liver fibrosis phenotype that is associated with a concomitant increase in liver retinoid concentration, tissue transglutaminase type II (TGaseII) activity, transforming growth factorβ (TGFβ) overexpression, and accumulation of collagen.

5 January 2004

Diego Vergani, Dimitrios‐Petrou Bogdanos, Harold Baum – 5 January 2004