International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Elena Palma

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

1. The Roger Williams Institute of Hepatology, London UKE5 9NT, UK
2. Foundation for Liver Research, King’s College, London UKE5 9NT, UK
Interests: alcohol hepatotoxicity; 3D experimental models for liver diseases; mitochondria dynamics/megamitochondria in ALD; immunotherapies for liver cancer; mitochondrial medicine for liver disease/cancer

Prof. Dr. Wen-Xing Ding

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Therapeutics, The University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, USA
Interests: alcohol; autophagy; liver disease; lysosome; mitochondria
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Alcohol-related Liver Diseases (ALD) encompass a wide range of pathological conditions, from mild and reversible effects to severe clinical manifestations that lead to rapid death. Despite usually progressing over decades of alcohol misuse, ALD is challenging to diagnose until precipitating events like alcoholic hepatitis and decompensation of cirrhosis occur. At this stage, curative options are insufficient to save the lives of these patients.

Studies aimed at further dissecting the processes involved in disease progression from a clinical, molecular, and histological point of view would contribute to advancing the understanding of the pathogenesis of ALD and eventually improving patients’ outcomes.

This Special Issue of IJMS aims to collect high-quality publications, including original research articles and (systematic) reviews, to provide an overview of the current hot topics in ALD research. Novel findings focusing on innovative experimental models for the study of ALD, molecular pathways and potential therapeutic targets or biomarkers, as well as histological observations, are particularly welcomed.

Please note that, for IJMS’ paper, theoretical studies should offer new insights into the understanding of experimental results or suggest new experimentally testable hypotheses.

Dr. Elena Palma
Prof. Dr. Wen-Xing Ding
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

ALD stages
alcoholic hepatitis
cirrhosis
experimental models
organoids
organotypic models
ALD biomarkers
molecular pathways
ethanol metabolism
alcohol-related steatosis
alcohol-related fibrosis
oxidative stress

Published Papers (1 paper)

Research

20 pages, 3435 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Human Precision-Cut Liver Slices: A Potential Platform to Study Alcohol-Related Liver Disease

by Una Rastovic, Sergio Francesco Bozzano, Antonio Riva, Arturo Simoni-Nieves, Nicola Harris, Rosa Miquel, Carolin Lackner, Yoh Zen, Ane Zamalloa, Krishna Menon, Nigel Heaton, Shilpa Chokshi and Elena Palma

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2024, 25(1), 150; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25010150 - 21 Dec 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1267

Abstract

Alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) encompasses a range of pathological conditions that are complex to study at the clinical and preclinical levels. Despite the global burden of ALD, there is a lack of effective treatments, and mortality is high. One of the reasons for the unsuccessful development of novel therapies is that experimental studies are hindered by the challenge of recapitulating this multifactorial disorder in vitro, including the contributions of hepatotoxicity, impaired lipid metabolism, fibrosis and inflammatory cytokine storm, which are critical drivers in the pathogenesis of ALD in patients and primary targets for drug development. Here, we present the unique characteristics of the culture of human precision-cut liver slices (PCLS) to replicate key disease processes in ALD. PCLS were prepared from human liver specimens and treated with ethanol alone or in combination with fatty acids and lipopolysaccharide (FA + LPS) for up to 5 days to induce hepatotoxic, inflammatory and fibrotic events associated with ALD. Alcohol insult induced hepatocyte death which was more pronounced with the addition of FA + LPS. This mixture showed a significant increase in the cytokines conventionally associated with the prototypical inflammatory response observed in severe ALD, and interestingly, alcohol alone exhibited a different effect. Profibrogenic activation was also observed in the slices and investigated in the context of slice preparation. These results support the versatility of this organotypic model to study different pathways involved in alcohol-induced liver damage and ALD progression and highlight the applicability of the PCLS for drug discovery, confirming their relevance as a bridge between preclinical and clinical studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Alcohol-Related Liver Diseases)

► Show Figures