Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. May 28, 2015; 7(9): 1154-1156
Published online May 28, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i9.1154
Ethanol-induced hepatic autophagy: Friend or foe?
Nabil Eid, Yuko Ito, Yoshinori Otsuki
Nabil Eid, Yuko Ito, Yoshinori Otsuki, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Division of Life Sciences, Osaka Medical College, Takatsuki, Osaka 569-8686, Japan
Author contributions: Eid N wrote the paper; Ito Y and Otsuki Y reviewed it.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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/
Correspondence to: Nabil Eid, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Division of Life Sciences, Osaka Medical College, 2-7 Daigaku-machi, Takatsuki, Osaka 569-8686, Japan. nabil@art.osaka-med.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-72-6831221 Fax: +81-72-6846511
Received: January 19, 2015
Peer-review started: January 20, 2015
First decision: February 7, 2015
Revised: February 14, 2015
Accepted: March 30, 2015
Article in press: April 2, 2015
Published online: May 28, 2015
Processing time: 120 Days and 23.6 Hours
Abstract

Excessive alcohol intake may induce hepatic apoptosis, steatosis, fibrosis, cirrhosis and even cancer. Ethanol-induced activation of general or selective autophagy as mitophagy or lipophagy in hepatocytes is generally considered a prosurvival mechanism. On the other side of the coin, upregulation of autophagy in non-hepatocytes as stellate cells may stimulate fibrogenesis and subsequently induce detrimental effects on the liver. The autophagic response of other non-hepatocytes as macrophages and endothelial cells is unknown yet and needs to be investigated as these cells play important roles in ethanol-induced hepatic steatosis and damage. Selective pharmacological stimulation of autophagy in hepatocytes may be of therapeutic importance in alcoholic liver disease.

Keywords: Macrophages; Autophagy; Hepatocytes; Lipophagy; Mitophagy; Stellate cells; Alcohol

Core tip: This short editorial discusses the impact of ethanol-induced upregulation of cytoprotective bulk and selective autophagy as mitophagy or lipohagy on various types of liver cells. While ethanol-induced activation of autophagy in hepatocytes is generally prosurvival mechanism, upregulation of autophagy in non-hepatocytes as stellate cells may stimulate fibrogenesis and subsequently induce detrimental effects on the liver as a whole. The autophagic response of other non-hepatocytes as macrophages and endothelial cells is unknown yet and needs to be investigated as these cells play important roles in ethanol-induced hepatic steatosis and damage.