A Barcelona team finds a protein that may hold a key to fatty liver disease

Fatty liver disease — fat building up in the liver in people who may barely drink — is now the world's most common chronic liver condition, and it can quietly progress to scarring and cancer. A University of Barcelona-led team studied a protein called ENT1, a gatekeeper that moves small molecules into liver cells. In mice without ENT1, the liver was protected against fat build-up, inflammation and scarring, and the whole body handled sugar better; in patients, ENT1 levels in liver samples tracked with the early stages of the disease. It is early work, published in the journal Metabolism — but ENT1 is a promising target because medicines that block proteins like it already exist and some are already being tested in people for other uses.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation