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14 January 2026
Informative Crystals
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a rising global health problem caused by excessive fat build up in the liver, compromising the organ's function. The organ stiffens on the path to end stage liver fibrosis but it's not been clear how the fat (lipid) build-up directly links to stiffening. Here, looking in rats, researchers find that dietary cholesterol-induced lipid crystals directly stiffen the liver as a forerunner to fibrosis. Cholesterol-containing lipid crystals are seen in orange and pink in this frozen liver electron micrograph
Read the published research article here
Written by
- Image from work by David Li and colleagues
- Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
- Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), January 2026
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