TRAIL – A New Mediator in Fatty Liver Disease

Background: TRAIL, a member of the TNF-ligand-family, is capable to induce apoptosis in cancer and is involved the eradication of virally infected cells. Methods/Results: We investigated liver tissues of patients with chronic HCV-infection and observed an upregulation of TRAIL expression in western blotting accompanied by fatty liver disease (FLD) as demonstrated by oil-red staining. To further evaluate the role of TRAIL in FLD and apoptosis we generated TRAIL- and FasL-expressing adenoviral vectors. Application of AdFasL in mice results in apoptosis of hepatocytes without evidence of FLD. In contrast AdTRAIL wa…