P J Meier, U Eckhardt, A Schroeder, B Hagenbuch, B Stieger – 30 December 2003 – The Na+‐dependent bile salt uptake systems Ntcp (rodents) and NTCP (human), and the Na+‐independent organic anion transporters oatpl (rat) and OATP (human) mediate sinusoidal uptake of a variety of amphipathic organic compounds into hepatocytes. Their properties indicate that an overall hepatic clearance of albumin‐bound compounds is mediated by a limited number of multispecific transporters with partially overlapping substrate specificities.

S D Nishioka – 30 December 2003

30 December 2003

J H Hoofnagle – 30 December 2003 – Hepatitis C virus (HCV) accounts for approximately 20% of cases of acute hepatitis, 70% of chronic hepatitis, and 30% of end‐stage liver disease in the United States. The acute infection has an incubation period of 7 weeks (range, 4‐20 weeks) and is symptomatic and icteric in only one third of patients. Serum aminotransferase levels generally increase greater than 10‐fold elevated and as symptoms and signs resolve decrease into the normal range. Antibody to HCV is usually but not always present at the time of onset of symptoms.

H J Alter, C Conry‐Cantilena, J Melpolder, D Tan, Mark Van Raden, D Herion, D Lau, J H Hoofnagle – 30 December 2003 – Among 248 asymptomatic blood donors positive for antibody to hepatitis C virus (anti‐HCV) enrolled in a long‐term prospective study, 86% had chronic HCV infection and 14% appeared to have recovered as assessed by serial determinations of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels and HCV RNA by polymerase chain reaction. Established parenteral risk factors for HCV transmission were identified in 75% of donors.

Li Yin, Nader Ghebranious, Subhendu Chakraborty, Christine E. Sheehan, Zoran Ilic, Stewart Sell – 30 December 2003 – The effect of expression of the p53 gene, in the presence or absence of the p53ser246 mutation (p53*), on ploidization (image cytometry), proliferation (expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen and radioactive thymidine histoautoradiography), and apoptosis (in situ detection of DNA fragments) is determined in hepatocytes of p53‐null and p53‐transgenic mice.

Kunio Okuda, Masahiro Arakawa, Yasuhiko Kubo, Kenji Sakata, Masayoshi Kage, Shozo Iwamoto, Shigeaki Takeda, Koshi Sonoda, Hayato Sanefuji – 30 December 2003 – Pedunculated hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) or extrahepatic growth of HCC is an uncommon but not rare pathological form, but its genesis is unknown. Right‐sided adrenal metastases of HCC that were abutting on or about to fuse with the right hepatic lobe were resected in three patients. The masses seemed to have originated in the para‐adrenal tissue, leaving the adrenal gland intact.

Esteban Mezey, Lynda Rennie‐Tankersley, James J. Potter – 30 December 2003 – Dihydrotestosterone decreased alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) activity and enzyme‐protein in rat hepatocytes in culture. This effect was observed after the hepatocytes had been exposed to dihydrotestosterone for 3 days at concentrations of 0.5 μmol/L or higher. Dihydrotestosterone did not decrease alcohol dehydrogenase messenger RNA (mRNA) but, rather, resulted in small increases in ADH mRNA after 3 days of exposure.

Elisa M. Konieczko, Amy K. Ralston, Aleta R. Crawford, Saul J. Karpen, James M. Crawford – 30 December 2003 – Although bile salts are toxic to the liver at high plasma concentrations, the effects of physiological concentrations of bile salts on normal hepatic function are poorly understood. We examined the effect of taurocholate (TC) on the basolateral uptake of [3H]TC in WIF‐B cells, a hybrid cell line stably exhibiting in vitro the structural and functional polarity of hepatocytes.

Hannu Raunio, Risto Juvonen, Markku Pasanen, Olavi Pelkonen, Paavo Pääkkö, Ylermi Soini – 30 December 2003 – The hepatic cytochrome P4502A6 (CYP2A6) enzyme mediates the oxidative metabolism of several procarcinogens that have liver as their primary target. Mouse models indicate that liver tumors invariably overexpress CYP2A forms, and that inflammation and cirrhosis may regulate the CYP2A expression pattern. In this study, the distribution of the CYP2A6 protein was investigated in a series of 24 human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) samples by immunohistochemical analysis.