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Updated: Aug 28, 2026
In Vitro Modeling of Fat Deposition in Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease
Published on: July 19, 2024
Immune-inflammatory biomarkers and immune features in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease: a
Zelin Ye1, Mingrui Liu2, Qingjuan Wu1
1Department of Infection, Guang'anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
Introduction:
Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is a heterogeneous liver disease involving metabolic dysfunction, inflammatory activity, immune activation, and fibrotic remodeling. Immune-inflammatory biomarkers and immune-related features may support disease characterization, fibrosis assessment, and risk stratification, but the knowledge structure of this subfield remains unclear. This study used bibliometric methods to map the development, contributors, intellectual structure, and emerging trends of immune-inflammatory biomarker and immune-feature research in MASLD/NAFLD.
Methods:
Publications were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), with Scopus used for cross-database validation. After manual screening and data refinement, 268 WoSCC publications from 2000 to 2025 were retained for primary analysis. CiteSpace and VOSviewer were used to analyze publication trends, contributing countries, institutions, journals, authors, collaboration networks, keyword co-occurrence, keyword bursts, and reference co-citation clusters.
Results:
Annual publication output increased markedly after 2022. China contributed the largest number of publications, whereas the United States showed the strongest collaborative link strength. Aarhus University was the leading institution, while Henning Grønbæk and Konstantin Kazankov were the leading authors by publication output. Co-citation and keyword analyses indicated that the field is organized around overlapping domains, including systemic inflammatory indices, hepatic inflammation and histologic injury, immune-cell and macrophage-centered features, fibrosis assessment, treatment-response readouts, and prognostic stratification. Recent keyword bursts highlighted oxidative stress, macrophages, pathogenesis, and liver fibrosis. Scopus validation showed broadly consistent temporal and thematic patterns.
Discussion:
Overall, this subfield is rapidly expanding toward fibrosis-oriented stratification, immune-cell phenotyping, and clinically scalable inflammatory biomarker research.
