Sharing pathogenic mechanism between non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and primary biliary cirrhosis

Pathological characteristics of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis(NASH) and primary biliary cirrhosis(PBC) were examined. Obese female NASH patients of the older age have a tendency to show PBC-mimicking biliary damages, portal inflammation as well as autoantibodies. Similar pathological changes were observed in older aged female NASH mice model. In contrast, NASH features were not observed in any PBC model mice. In visceral fat of NASH mice model, TNF-αor IL6-positive macrophages aggregation was detected. In drug-induced liver injury mice model, estrogen pretreatment reduced inflammatory severity, while progesterone pretreatment enhanced it. We hypothesized that effects of inflammatory cytokines in the obesity women were enhanced by hormonal imbalance, and easy to cause biliary damages and portal inflammation.