Non-coding keratin variants associate with fibrosis progression in hemochromatosis patients

Background and Aims: Keratins 8 and 18 (K8/K18) protect the liver from various forms of injury. Accordingly, exonic K8/K18 variants associate with adverse outcome of acute liver failure and with liver fibrosis progression in patients with chronic hepatitis C infection or primary biliary cirrhosis. An overexpression of K8/K18 variants in hemochromatosis patients was also reported, but no association with liver fibrosis development was seen. Methods: To study the role of keratin variants in hemochromatosis, we analyzed the entire exonic regions of K8/K18 in 240 European hemochromatosis patients all carrying a homo…