Liver injury and the macrophage issue: Molecular and mechanistic facts and their clinical relevance

Siyer Roohani, Frank Tacke

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

37 Scopus citations

Abstract

The liver is an essential immunological organ due to its gatekeeper position to bypassing antigens from the intestinal blood flow and microbial products from the intestinal commensals. The tissue-resident liver macrophages, termed Kupffer cells, represent key phagocytes that closely interact with local parenchymal, interstitial and other immunological cells in the liver to maintain homeostasis and tolerance against harmless antigens. Upon liver injury, the pool of hepatic macrophages expands dramatically by infiltrating bone marrow-/monocyte-derived macrophages. The interplay of the injured microenvironment and altered macrophage pool skews the subsequent course of liver injuries. It may range from complete recovery to chronic inflammation, fibrosis, cirrhosis and eventually hepatocellular cancer. This review summarizes current knowledge on the classification and role of hepatic macrophages in the healthy and injured liver.

Original languageEnglish
Article number7249
JournalInternational Journal of Molecular Sciences
Volume22
Issue number14
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Jul 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Acute liver injury
  • Chronic liver injury
  • HBV
  • HCV
  • Hepatic macrophages
  • Kupffer cells
  • Liver fibrosis
  • Monocyte-derived macrophages
  • NAFLD
  • NASH

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