Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Jul 27, 2020; 12(7): 332-349
Published online Jul 27, 2020. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v12.i7.332
Oxidative stress in alcohol-related liver disease
Huey K Tan, Euan Yates, Kristen Lilly, Ashwin D Dhanda
Huey K Tan, Euan Yates, Kristen Lilly, Ashwin D Dhanda, Hepatology Research Group, Institute of Translational and Stratified Medicine, Faculty of Health, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL6 8BU, United Kingdom
Huey K Tan, Ashwin D Dhanda, South West Liver Unit, University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, Plymouth PL6 8DH, United Kingdom
Kristen Lilly, Department of Clinical Immunology, University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, Plymouth PL6 8DH, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Tan HK and Yates E contributed equally to this work; Tan HK, Yates E and Lilly K reviewed and analyzed the literature; all authors contributed to the writing; Dhanda AD finalized the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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/
Corresponding author: Ashwin D Dhanda, BSc, MBChB, MRCP, PhD, Associate Professor, South West Liver Unit, University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, Derriford Road Crownhill, Plymouth PL6 8DH, United Kingdom. ashwin.dhanda@plymouth.ac.uk
Received: December 31, 2019
Peer-review started: December 31, 2019
First decision: February 19, 2020
Revised: May 6, 2020
Accepted: May 15, 2020
Article in press: May 15, 2020
Published online: July 27, 2020
Core Tip

Core tip: Alcohol is a global health problem with alcohol-related liver disease forming a significant proportion of alcohol-attributable deaths. However, there are no effective treatments for alcohol-related liver disease. Oxidative stress plays multiple roles in disease pathogenesis, which if better understood may yield new therapeutic targets. Here, we review the current literature on how alcohol consumption leads to oxidative stress and how this results in hepatocyte apoptosis and necrosis through its contribution to mitochondrial stress, dysregulation of cell signalling pathways and epigenetic regulation.