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BACKGROUND: Hepatocellular ballooning degeneration distinguishes metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) from metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver (MASL), yet specific biomarkers are lacking. METHODS: The spatial transcriptomes of liver sections from human MASL and MASH patients and single-cell data were used to examine hepatocyte ballooning. AKR1B10 and CK8/18 expression in 20 human liver samples were analysed by H moreover, their combined application improved the ballooning diagnostic rate and accuracy. Serum AKR1B10 levels were markedly higher in patients with MASH than in individuals with other liver diseases (p < 0.01) and correlated with ballooning severity (R = 0.624). Ordinal logistic regression analysis indicated that the serum AKR1B10 level was strongly positively correlated with liver tissue ballooning severity (OR = 1.541 per unit, p = 0.003). The constructed model demonstrated significant discriminatory ability for identifying MASH patients with ballooning (AUC = 0.863). CONCLUSIONS: AKR1B10 is a potential diagnostic and therapeutic biomarker for hepatocyte ballooning in MASH patients with strong spatial specificity and clinical value for noninvasive diagnosis, disease stratification, and treatment monitoring.
Li et al. (Wed,) studied this question.