Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is an aggressive form of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) that affects 3-4% of the adult population and progresses to cirrhosis in 15-20% of affected subjects. There is currently no approved therapy for NASH and the only accurate method to diagnose this condition is a liver biopsy which is invasive, painful and occasionally associated with mortality. The lack of a point-of-care diagnostic tool to diagnose NASH, to assess disease progression versus regression and response to various therapeutics is considered by many to be the most important barrier towards large scale identification of affected individuals and for drug-development against NASH. This proposal represents a multi-PI effort to develop a lipidomics-based biomarker panel to fill these gaps in knowledge. Dr. Sanyal (PI) from the NIDDK NASH Clinical Research Network (CRN) will lead this effort and Dr. Dennis (Co-PI) who previously led the NIGMS LIPID_MAPS consortium will lead the lipid analysis. The NASH CRN data coordinating center (DCC) will continue to serve as the DCC for this proposal. The studies will draw from the NASH CRN biorepository which contains plasma drawn at the time of a liver biopsy from over 2000 highly phenotyped subjects with NAFLD.
Three specific aims will test the hypothesis that changes in lipid metabolism in NAFLD allow identification of a circulating lipid signature diagnostic of NASH, disease progression and response to specific therapies.
Aim 1 will define and validate a circulating lipid profile diagnostic of underlying NASH and its severity. A model building cohort and two validation cohorts will be studied. The model building cohort will include subjects with and without NAFLD. The validation cohort will include: (1) a group of subjects with varying phenotypes of NAFLD and age, gender, race and weight-matched controls without NAFLD, and (2) a prospective group of subjects in a real-world setting who are going to receive a clinically-indicated liver biopsy for suspected NASH.
Aim 2 will define changes in circulating lipids diagnostic of disease progression in NASH. This will be accomplished by performing lipidomic analyses on plasma drawn at the time of baseline liver biopsies in a cohort of subjects with varying phenotypes of NAFLD who have undergone two or more liver biopsies.
Aim 3 will define the circulating lipid signature associated with treatment-induced improvement of NASH. This will utilize unique sample-sets obtained during protocol-driven biopsies from subjects enrolled in clinical trials by the NASH CRN. The studies will further innovate by applying the state-of-the-art analytic platforms developed by LIPID_MAPS for diagnostics development for NASH. Preliminary data support the feasibility of the proposed studies and aims. These studies will meet all of the quality metrics for accuracy assessment of diagnostics (QUADAS) and will have a strong positive impact on the field by allowing development of a diagnostic platform that will permit point of care evaluation of NASH. This will enhance access to care and eventually improve the health of the people thereby aligning with the mission of the NIH.

Public Health Relevance

There is a great clinical and public health need to develop a diagnostic method to allow 'point-of-care' diagnosis of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, assess its progression towards cirrhosis and to evaluate its response to various treatments. This proposal will meet this challenge by identification and validation of a diagnostic signature of NASH, disease progression and response to treatment using state of the art high throughput lipidomic analysis of plasma samples obtained at the time of a liver biopsy in subjects with NAFLD from the NIDDK NASH Clinical Research Network and from matched controls without NAFLD.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DK105961-02
Application #
9132243
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZDK1)
Program Officer
Doo, Edward
Project Start
2015-08-26
Project End
2019-05-31
Budget Start
2016-06-01
Budget End
2017-05-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2016
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Virginia Commonwealth University
Department
Internal Medicine/Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
105300446
City
Richmond
State
VA
Country
United States
Zip Code
23298
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Quehenberger, Oswald; Dahlberg-Wright, Signe; Jiang, Jiang et al. (2018) Quantitative determination of esterified eicosanoids and related oxygenated metabolites after base hydrolysis. J Lipid Res 59:2436-2445
Siddiqui, Mohammad Shadab; Harrison, Stephen A; Abdelmalek, Manal F et al. (2018) Case definitions for inclusion and analysis of endpoints in clinical trials for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis through the lens of regulatory science. Hepatology 67:2001-2012
Oseini, Abdul M; Cole, Banumathi K; Issa, Danny et al. (2018) Translating scientific discovery: the need for preclinical models of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Hepatol Int 12:6-16
Sanyal, Arun J (2018) Putting non-alcoholic fatty liver disease on the radar for primary care physicians: how well are we doing? BMC Med 16:148
Santhekadur, Prasanna K; Kumar, Divya P; Sanyal, Arun J (2018) Preclinical models of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. J Hepatol 68:230-237
Puri, Puneet; Daita, Kalyani; Joyce, Andrew et al. (2017) The presence and severity of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis is associated with specific changes in circulating bile acids. Hepatology :
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Sanyal, Arun J; Miller, Veronica (2016) Regulatory Science and Drug Approval for Alcoholic and Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis. Gastroenterology 150:1723-7

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