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. 2019 Dec 25;10(1):1–21. doi: 10.1016/j.jcmgh.2019.12.006

Figure 8.

Figure 8

Glutaminolytic activity is increased in fibrotic patients and correlates with fibrosis severity. (A) GLS1 expression was assessed by IHC in NAFLD patients with varying degrees of liver fibrosis. Red arrows indicate the positively stained ductal cells, yellow arrows indicate the positively stained immune cells, and purple arrows indicate the positively stained stromal cells such as MF-HSCs. (B) GLS1 and αSMA co-stained liver sections from fibrosing NASH patients. (C and D) Distribution of glutamate, glutamate/glutamine, α-KG, fumarate, malate, and citrate in serum samples of staged fibrotic NAFLD patients (F0, 12; F1, 38; F2, 100; F3, 42; and F4, 8). The top and bottom of the box are the third and first quartiles, respectively. The middle line of the box is the median. P values of univariate ordinal logistic regression analyses are shown on the top. (E) Pearson correlation analysis of glutamate/glutamine and α-KG in NAFLD patients. (F) Plasma levels of glutamine, glutamate, and glutamate/glutamine were analyzed in an independent cohort of 40 biopsy-proved fibrotic patients with HIV/HCV infections (F0–1, 11; F2, 15; and F3–4, 14). Bars represent means ± SEM. P value was calculated using an unpaired Student t test.