On January 2, Nature Medicine, the top international magazine, published online the latest research results of Professor Li Hongliang's team. It systematically elucidates the key protection effect of de-ubiquitin CYLD on hepatic steatosis, settling the confusion and controversy over the role of CYLD in the liver provide new understanding for understanding the molecular mechanism of the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver and are expected to become a new target for clinical treatment.

The paper’s title is “The Deubiquitinating Enzyme Cylindromatosis Mitigates Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis”. Postdoctor Ji Yanxiao, Professor Huang Zan, PhD student Yang Xia, and Wang Xiaozhan are co-first authors of the co-author, and Professor Li Hongliang and Professor David E. Cohen from Cornell University Medical School are the co-corresponding authors. The achievement is supported by the National Outstanding Youth Science Foundation, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Science and Technology Support Program, the National Key Research and Development Program, and the National Institutes of Health of USA.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a liver metabolic disease characterized by accumulation of liver fat. According to the survey, there are currently over 300 million patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in China. At present, there is no clinical drug for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in the world.

Li Hongliang’s team confirmed through research that in the pathological state, CYLD inhibits the key target protein TAK1 activity through deubiquitinating enzyme activity and plays an important protective role in the process of hepatic steatosis and inflammation. This conclusion has been fully validated in different animal models of non-alcoholic fatty liver and metabolic syndrome.

This study is a major breakthrough in the field of liver metabolic diseases research. It not only settles the confusion and controversy over the role of CYLD in the liver, but also lays a theoretical foundation for the development of targeted therapies for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. (Translated by Song Min, Wu Xia)