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Key studies published in 2019 highlight novel concepts regarding the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease: the emerging role of host–microorganism interactions and the regional microbiota as disease drivers, and the identification of new therapeutic targets. These findings suggest new avenues for research and define important hallmarks for clinical diagnosis and therapy.
Key studies published in 2019 shed new light on how complex motor patterns emerge from the functional organization of circuits in the enteric nervous system and, in turn, how extrinsic afferent neurons and common commensal microorganisms interface with these circuits to modulate intestinal motility.
In 2019, there have been substantial advances in our understanding of the gut microbiome. Key developments include an improved gut-on-a-chip system, a search for small proteins produced by the commensal gut microbiome and the publication of one of the most comprehensive multi-omic datasets for interrogating host–microorganism interactions in inflammatory bowel disease.
Advances have been made in the field of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in 2019. One paper highlights the role of gut microbiota in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) pathogenesis, another presents a noninvasive algorithm for detecting advanced liver fibrosis and another suggests a potential novel approach to treating nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and suppressing HCC development.
In 2019, powerful single-cell analyses were applied to liver cancer biology at an unprecedented level. In parallel with this achievement was the identification of serum α-fetoprotein as a biomarker for patient selection in the use of ramucirumab for liver cancer and that β-catenin activation can distinguish between liver cancer immunotherapy responders and non-responders.
HBV and HCV infections continue to be major global health problems, causing over 1 million deaths annually. Key studies this year investigated the innate and adaptive immune responses in different clinical scenarios in HBV infection, whereas others evaluated the merits of transplanting HCV-infected organs into uninfected recipients.
