Working out why fat accumulates in the liver

Heterogeneity in hepatic synthesis pathways may influence the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and atherogenic dyslipidaemia: studies in humans using in vivo and in vitro approaches

BHF Senior Basic Science Research Fellow Professor Leanne Hodson is studying how fat accumulates in the liver, which can increase the risk of heart disease. We don’t fully understand why fat accumulates, but we do know that within the liver, sugar can be made into new fat in a process called de novo lipogenesis, or DNL. This process may cause liver cells to store fat. In this project, Professor Hodson will study how DNL from dietary sugar leads to fat accumulation within the liver. She will study this in healthy men and women before and after they have consumed foods containing high amounts of sugars, such as soft drinks and sweets. She will also study people with and without alterations in genes that are involved in DNL. To study the processes behind fat metabolism and storage, she will grow human liver cells in different amounts of sugars and measure how much fat is made, where fat is stored in the cell, and how this affects their function. Understanding how fat builds up in the liver and how our diet is involved will help us work out which foods lower the risk of fatty liver and heart disease. It will reveal how new fat in the liver is made and may lead to new nutritional guidelines, and the long term, the development of new treatments.