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Clinical and Molecular Biomarkers for Diagnosis and Staging of NAFLD

Authors :
Stefania Di Mauro
Alessandra Scamporrino
Agnese Filippello
Antonino Di Pino
Roberto Scicali
Roberta Malaguarnera
Francesco Purrello
Salvatore Piro
Source :
International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Vol 22, Iss 21, p 11905 (2021)
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2021.

Abstract

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common hepatic pathology in industrialized countries, affecting about 25% of the general population. NAFLD is a benign condition, however, it could evolve toward more serious diseases, including non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), fibrosis, cirrhosis, and finally, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Liver biopsy is still the gold standard for NAFLD diagnosis. Due to the risks associated with liver biopsy and the impossibility to apply it on a large scale, it is now necessary to identify non-invasive biomarkers, which may reliably identify patients at higher risk of progression. Therefore, several lines of research have tried to address this issue by identifying novel biomarkers using omics approaches, including lipidomics, metabolomics and RNA molecules’ profiling. Thus, in this review, we firstly report the conventional biomarkers used in clinical practice for NAFL and NASH diagnosis as well as fibrosis staging, and secondly, we pay attention to novel biomarkers discovered through omics approaches with a particular focus on RNA biomarkers (microRNAs, long-noncoding RNAs), showing promising diagnostic performance for NAFL/NASH diagnosis and fibrosis staging.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
14220067 and 16616596
Volume :
22
Issue :
21
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.5f97a1e3ef748ca8078245b8e2cf650
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms222111905