Copyright
©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 14, 2015; 21(2): 379-383
Published online Jan 14, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i2.379
Published online Jan 14, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i2.379
Telomere shortening as genetic risk factor of liver cirrhosis
Lucia Carulli, Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, 41126 Modena, Italy
Author contributions: Carulli L solely contributed to this paper.
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: Lucia Carulli, MD, PhD, Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Via Giardini 1355, 41126 Modena, Italy. lucia.carulli@unimore.it
Telephone: +39-59-3961804 Fax: +39-59-3961335
Received: October 8, 2014
Peer-review started: October 9, 2014
First decision: October 29, 2014
Revised: November 4, 2014
Accepted: December 1, 2014
Article in press: December 21, 2014
Published online: January 14, 2015
Peer-review started: October 9, 2014
First decision: October 29, 2014
Revised: November 4, 2014
Accepted: December 1, 2014
Article in press: December 21, 2014
Published online: January 14, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: Common risk factors leading to chronic liver injury can be identified in most patients with cirrhosis, but approximately 5% of patients have no apparent risk factors. Understanding the pathogenesis of cirrhosis formation is essential to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic tools and for its prevention. The identification of genetic risk factors associated with cirrhosis is one of the possible way to approach this issue. Evidence supporting the role of genetic risk factors has been accumulating during the past years and recently it has been also suggested that telomere shortening may represent a genetic risk factor.