Jonathan A. Leighton, Michael K. Bay, Alma L. Maldonado, Raymond F. Johnson, Steven Schenker, K. V. Speeg – 1 February 1990 – Recent work has shown that colchicine may benefit patients with primary biliary or alcoholic cirrhosis. However, very little is known about its pharmacokinetics in the presence of impaired liver function. To study this we examined the effects of three models of experimental liver dysfunction and one of cytochrome P‐450 inhibition on colchicine elimination in the rat.

Charles S. Lieber, Alessandro Casini, Leonore M. Decarli, Cho‐Il Kim, Nancy Lowe, Rika Sasaki, Maria A. Leo – 1 February 1990 – Chronic ethanol consumption by baboons (50% of energy from a liquid diet) for 18 to 36 mo resulted in significant depletion of hepatic S‐adenosyl‐L‐methionine concentration: 74.6 ± 2.4 nmol/gm vs. 108.9 ± 8.2 nmol/gm liver in controls (p < 0.005). The depletion was corrected with S‐adenosyl‐L‐methionine (0.4 mg/kcal) administration (102.1 ± 15.4 nmol/gm after S‐adenosyl‐L‐methionine–ethanol, with 121.4 ± 11.9 nmol/gm in controls).

Robin D. Hughes, Christopher D. Gove, Roger Williams, Hirohita Tsubouchi, Yasushi Daikuhara – 1 February 1990

Rowen K. Zetterman – 1 February 1990

Elspeth M. Jack, Philip Bentley, Francoise Bieri, Samar F. Muakkassah‐Kelly, Willy Stäubli, Joseph Suter, Felix Waechter, Luis M. Cruz‐Orive – 1 February 1990 – Gamma‐glutamyltranspeptidase‐positive hepatocyte foci were produced in female rats given a single dose of diethylnitrosamine neonatally after birth and, after weaning, a diet containing phenobarbitone for 30 wk. The nucleator method, a new stereological approach, provided an efficient, unbiased estimate of mean cell volume in focal lesions and extrafocal areas.

David Kershenobich, Marcos Rojkind, Alfonso Quiroga, Jorge Alcocer‐Varela – 1 February 1990 – Lymphocyte and monocyte function was investigated in eight patients with primary biliary cirrhosis and in age‐matched and sex‐matched controls. In three of the eight cirrhotic patients, two were in the late stage of the disease (stage III) and concanavalin A‐induced suppressor cell function was markedly decreased; it returned to normal levels after 1 mo of treatment consisting of 5 mg per week of orally administered colchicine.

Yasushi Shiratori, Mitsugu Tanaka, Kenji Hai1, Tateo Kawase, Shuichiro Shiina, Tsuneaki Sugimoto – 1 February 1990 – Although administration of 100 mg galactosamine caused severe hepatic injury in C3H/HeN mice, splenectomy reduced the grade of this hepatotoxicity. However, this hepatic injury was scarcely detected in the endotoxin‐resistant C3H/HeJ mice. In addition, in contrast to high lethality in C3H/HeN mice with a combined administration of galactosamine and endotoxin, splenectomy rendered C3H/HeN mice slightly resistant to this treatment.

Shashi Kumar, Rudolf E. Stauber, Judith S. Gavaler, Michael H. Basista, Vincents J. Dindzans, Robert R. Schade, Mordechai Rabinovitz, Ralph E. Tarter, Robert Gordon, Thomas E. Starzl, David H. Van Thiel – 1 February 1990 – Alcohol abuse is the most common cause of end‐stage liver disease in the United States, but many transplant centers are unwilling to accept alcoholic patients because of their supposed potential for recidivism, poor compliance with the required immunosuppression regimen and resulting failure of the allograft.

Arie J. Zuckerman – 1 February 1990 – A random‐primed complementary DNA library was constructed from plasma containing the uncharacterized non‐A, non‐B hepatitis (NANBH) agent and screened with serum from a patient diagnosed with NANBH. A complementary DNA clone was isolated that was shown to encode an antigen associated specifically with NANBH infections. This clone is not derived from host DNA but from an RNA molecule present in NANBH infections that consists of at least 10,000 nucleotides and that is positive‐stranded with respect to the encoded NANBH antigen.

Fernando Corrales, Carmen Cabrero, Maria A. Pajares, Pablo Ortiz, Antonio Martin‐Duce, Jose M. Mato – 1 February 1990 – Catalytically active human and rat liver S‐adenosylmethionine synthetase exists mainly in tetramer and dimer form. In liver biopsy samples from cirrhotic patients a marked reduction in total S‐adenosylmethionine synthetase activity and a specific loss of the tetrameric form of the enzyme exist. We have investigated the possible role of sulfhydryl groups in maintaining the structure and activity of S‐adenosylmethionine synthetase.