Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 7, 2021; 27(25): 3705-3733
Published online Jul 7, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i25.3705
Incorporating mucosal-associated invariant T cells into the pathogenesis of chronic liver disease
Albert J Czaja
Albert J Czaja, Department of Medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, United States
Author contributions: Czaja AJ researched, designed, and wrote this article specifically for the World Journal of Gastroenterology; Czaja AJ constructed the 5 fully-referenced tables, created the figures.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author has no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Albert J Czaja, FAASLD, AGAF, FACG, FACP, MD, Emeritus Professor, Department of Medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN 55905, United States. czaja.albert@mayo.edu
Received: December 19, 2020
Peer-review started: December 19, 2020
First decision: February 11, 2021
Revised: March 22, 2021
Accepted: June 15, 2021
Article in press: June 15, 2021
Published online: July 7, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: Circulating mucosal-associated invariant T cells are depleted in chronic liver disease, and they have a disease-nonspecific, hyper-activated, immune exhausted, and dysfunctional phenotype. Antimicrobial, immune regulatory, pro-inflammatory, and anti-inflammatory actions are established biological functions of these innate-like lymphocytes, and each function has been invoked to understand the pathogenesis of chronic hepatitis and cholestatic liver disease. Future investigations must establish their pathological role in each form of chronic liver disease, determine the factors that direct function in the hepatic microenvironment, associate deficient functionality with disease severity and outcome, and explore therapeutic manipulations.