EFHD1 may turn fatty liver disease into injury, with inhibition reducing scarring by up to 60%

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Add as preferred source Fluorescent microscope image of a healthy liver cell. Mitochondria (green) are compact and bean-shaped. Credit: Dipayan Chaudhuri Obesity-related metabolic liver disease affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, but only some of those livers develop scarring, become inflamed and eventually fail. University of Utah researchers have identified a protein, EFHD1, that appears to drive that transition by triggering an out-of-place antiviral immune response.

They also demonstrated that blocking the protein can protect against liver injury in human cells and mouse models, even on a high-fat diet—paving the way for therapies to prevent liver damage.