Gene expression predicts histological severity and reveals distinct molecular profiles of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

Transcriptomic analysis of liver biopsies that cover the spectrum of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease reveals genes that are progressively regulated over the course of the disease. This study demonstrates that progressive changes in expression of these genes can be used to approximate the histological grade of a liver biopsy. Furthermore, the relative progression profiles of these disease-responsive genes are shown to be distinct across patient biopsies. This observation suggests that there may be distinct biological processes that drive disease progression across individuals This dataset contains transcriptomic profiles of 78 distinct human liver biopsies. Of these, 6 are histologically normal, and 72 cover the full spectrum of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD activity score 0-6, fibrosis stage 0-4).

针对覆盖非酒精性脂肪性肝病（nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, NAFLD）全病程的人类肝脏活检组织开展转录组学分析，可揭示出随疾病进程逐步发生表达调控的基因。本研究证实，上述基因的表达水平变化可用于预估肝脏活检组织的组织学分级。此外，研究发现这些疾病响应基因的相对进展模式在不同患者的活检样本中存在显著差异。该结果提示，驱动不同个体疾病进展的生物学过程可能存在异质性。本数据集包含78例不同人类肝脏活检样本的转录组谱。其中6例为组织学正常样本，剩余72例覆盖非酒精性脂肪性肝病全病程（NAFLD活动评分0~6分，纤维化分期0~4期）。