Manoj Thapa, Raghavan Chinnadurai, Victoria M. Velazquez, Dana Tedesco, Elizabeth Elrod, Jin‐Hwan Han, Prachi Sharma, Chris Ibegbu, Andrew Gewirtz, Frank Anania, Bali Pulendran, Mehul S. Suthar, Arash Grakoui – 24 February 2015 – Chronic liver disease mediated by activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) leads to liver fibrosis. Here, we postulated that the immune regulatory properties of HSCs might promote the profibrogenic activity of B cells. Fibrosis is completely attenuated in carbon tetrachloride–treated, B cell–deficient µMT mice, showing that B cells are required.

Wenjie Huang, Zhangqian Chen, Xin Shang, Dean Tian, Daowen Wang, Kaichun Wu, Daiming Fan, Limin Xia – 23 February 2015 – Metastasis is the main reason for high recurrence and poor survival of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after curative resection. However, the molecular mechanism underlying HCC metastasis remains unclear. Here, we report on a novel function of SRY (sex determining region Y)‐box 12 (Sox12), a member of the SYR‐related high mobility group box family proteins, in promoting HCC metastasis.

Jude A. Oben – 23 February 2015

Lingling Zhang, Leiming Liu, Zhiyong He, Guangbing Li, Junping Liu, Zhangfa Song, Hongchuan Jin, Karl Lenhard Rudolph, Huayu Yang, Yilei Mao, Lianfeng Zhang, Hongbing Zhang, Zhicheng Xiao, Zhenyu Ju – 23 February 2015 – The liver possesses extraordinary regenerative capacity in response to injury. However, liver regeneration (LR) is often impaired in disease conditions. Wild‐type p53‐induced phosphatase 1 (Wip1) is known as a tumor promoter and enhances cell proliferation, mainly by deactivating antioncogenes. However, in this work, we identified an unexpected role of Wip1 in LR.

Zobair M. Younossi, Yushan Jiang, Nathaniel J. Smith, Maria Stepanova, Rachel Beckerman – 23 February 2015 – Patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) exhibit reduced work productivity owing to their disease. Historically, most regimens indicated for CHC genotype 1 (GT1) patients were administered with pegylated interferon (Peg‐IFN) and/or ribavirin (RBV), which further compromised work productivity during treatment.

Jean‐François Dufour – 20 February 2015

Jean‐François Dufour – 20 February 2015

Michael F. Sorrell – 18 February 2015

Michael R. Marvin, Nicole Ferguson, Robert M. Cannon, Christopher M. Jones, Guy N. Brock – 18 February 2015 – Multiple studies have demonstrated an advantage for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients under the current liver allocation system, such that the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) recently voted in support of a proposal to delay granting Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease (MELD) exception points to all HCC patients for 6 months, independently of a candidate's native MELD score or alpha‐fetoprotein (AFP) level.

Edgar N. Tafaleng, Souvik Chakraborty, Bing Han, Pamela Hale, Wanquan Wu, Alejandro Soto‐Gutierrez, Carol A. Feghali‐Bostwick, Andrew A. Wilson, Darrell N. Kotton, Masaki Nagaya, Stephen C. Strom, Jayanta Roy‐Chowdhury, Donna B. Stolz, David H. Perlmutter, Ira J. Fox – 18 February 2015 – In the classical form of α1‐antitrypsin deficiency (ATD), aberrant intracellular accumulation of misfolded mutant α1‐antitrypsin Z (ATZ) in hepatocytes causes hepatic damage by a gain‐of‐function, “proteotoxic” mechanism.