Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Year in Review
  • Published:

Liver fibrosis in 2012

Convergent pathways that cause hepatic fibrosis in NASH

Efforts to understand fatty liver disease have focused on the gut microbiome's stimulation of hepatic injury and fibrosis through specialized signalling complexes at the cell surface and in the cytosol of liver cells. Combined with increased hedgehog activity and progenitor cell expansion, new clues are emerging to elucidate the pathogenesis of fibrosis.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Emerging pathways of fibrogenesis in fatty liver disease.

References

  1. Paredes, A. H., Torres, D. M. & Harrison, S. A. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Clin. Liver Dis. 16, 397–419 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Alisi, A., Feldstein, A. E., Villani, A., Raponi, M. & Nobili, V. Pediatric nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: a multidisciplinary approach. Nat. Rev. Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 9, 152–161 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Schroder, K. & Tschopp, J. The inflammasomes. Cell 140, 821–832 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Henao-Mejia, J. et al. Inflammasome-mediated dysbiosis regulates progression of NAFLD and obesity. Nature 482, 179–185 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Miura, K. et al. TLR2 and palmitic acid cooperatively contribute to the development of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis through inflammasome activation. Hepatology http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hep.26081.

  6. Goodman, A. L. & Gordon, J. I. Our unindicted coconspirators: human metabolism from a microbial perspective. Cell Metab. 12, 111–116 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Guy, C. D. et al. Hedgehog pathway activation parallels histologic severity of injury and fibrosis in human nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Hepatology 55, 1711–1721 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Li, Y. et al. Targeting the Hedgehog signaling pathway for cancer therapy. Expert Opin. Ther. Targets 16, 49–66 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Nobili, V. et al. Hepatic progenitor cells activation, fibrosis and adipokines production in pediatric nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Hepatology 56, 2142–2153 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

S. L. Friedman receives funding from the National Institutes of Health (DK56621 and AA020709).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Friedman, S. Convergent pathways that cause hepatic fibrosis in NASH. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 10, 71–72 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2012.256

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2012.256

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing