Copyright
©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 7, 2015; 21(17): 5138-5148
Published online May 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i17.5138
Published online May 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i17.5138
Reversibility and heritability of liver fibrosis: Implications for research and therapy
Hussein M Atta, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Minia University, El-Minia 61519, Egypt
Author contributions: Atta HM solely contributed to this paper.
Supported by Egyptian Science and Technology Development Fund under Project 1550.
Conflict-of-interest: No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Hussein M Atta, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Minia University, Misr-Aswan Road, El-Minia 61519, Egypt. atta@mu.edu.eg
Telephone: +20-1-001407222 Fax: +20-2-22917077
Received: January 10, 2015
Peer-review started: January 11, 2015
First decision: February 10, 2015
Revised: February 20, 2015
Accepted: March 31, 2015
Article in press: March 31, 2015
Published online: May 7, 2015
Peer-review started: January 11, 2015
First decision: February 10, 2015
Revised: February 20, 2015
Accepted: March 31, 2015
Article in press: March 31, 2015
Published online: May 7, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: Liver fibrosis, if untreated, progresses to cirrhosis and liver failure or malignancy. Liver fibrosis is reversible and potentially heritable process. Heritability and complete reversibility of liver fibrosis although debatable are of profound importance for research and therapy. Epigenetic mechanisms regulate both processes and hold the key for deciphering their regulatory mechanisms and providing new and much needed therapeutic options.