Abstract
The chemokine system of ligands and receptors is implicated in the progression of alcohol-associated hepatitis (AH). Finding upstream regulators could lead to novel therapies. This study involved coordinated expression of chemokines in livers of healthy controls (HC) and patients with AH in 2 distinct cohorts of patients with various chronic liver diseases. Studies in cultured hepatocytes and in tissue-specific KO were used for mechanistic insight into a potential upstream regulator of chemokine expression in AH. Selected C-X-C chemokine members of the IL-8 chemokine family and C-C chemokine CCL20 were highly associated with AH compared with HC but not in patients with liver diseases of other etiologies (nonalcoholic fatty liver disease [NAFLD] and hepatitis C virus [HCV]). Our previous studies implicate macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) as a pleiotropic cytokine/chemokine with the potential to coordinately regulate chemokine expression in AH. LPS-stimulated expression of multiple chemokines in cultured hepatocytes was dependent on MIF. Gao-binge ethanol feeding to mice induced a similar coordinated chemokine expression in livers of WT mice; this was prevented in hepatocyte-specific Mif–KO (MifΔHep) mice. This study demonstrates that patients with AH exhibit a specific, coordinately expressed chemokine signature and that hepatocyte-derived MIF might drive this inflammatory response.
Authors
Kyle L. Poulsen, Xiude Fan, Christopher D. Kibler, Emily Huang, Xiaoqin Wu, Megan R. McMullen, Lin Leng, Richard Bucala, Meritxell Ventura-Cots, Josepmaria Argemi, Ramon Bataller, Laura E. Nagy
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