Liver Zonation - Revisiting Old Questions With New Technologies
Rory P Cunningham1, Natalie Porat-Shliom1
1Thoracic and GI Malignancies Branch, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States.
Frontiers in Physiology
|September 27, 2021
Summary
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) development is linked to liver zonation disruptions. New single-cell technologies help understand how liver cell spatial organization impacts metabolic health and NAFLD.
Area of Science:
- Hepatology and Metabolic Regulation
- Cellular Biology and Liver Zonation
Background:
- Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is increasingly common, yet its causes and mechanisms are unclear.
- Liver zonation, the spatial organization of metabolic pathways, is crucial for liver function but its role in NAFLD pathogenesis is unknown.
- Historically, studying liver zonation was limited by technological constraints.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review advances in studying liver zonation.
- To elucidate the role of liver zonation in liver physiology and pathology, particularly in NAFLD development.
- To highlight how understanding metabolic spatial organization can inform NAFLD research and therapeutics.
Main Methods:
- Review of recent literature on liver zonation and NAFLD.
- Discussion of technological advancements in single-cell analysis and imaging.
- Synthesis of current knowledge on hepatocyte heterogeneity and metabolic compartmentalization.
Main Results:
- Recent technologies enable detailed characterization of cells across the liver lobule.
- Perturbations in liver zonation are increasingly implicated in hepatic pathophysiology.
- Understanding spatial metabolic organization is key to advancing NAFLD research.
Conclusions:
- Liver zonation plays a critical, yet understudied, role in metabolic homeostasis.
- Disrupted liver zonation may contribute significantly to NAFLD development.
- Further research into liver zonation offers potential for targeted NAFLD therapies.
