Leading article

What keeps hepatocytes on the straight and narrow? Maintaining diVerentiated function in the liver The liver in general and hepatocytes in particular maintain an awesome array of function—synthesis, catabolism, intermediary metabolism, and detoxification. Recent work has enlarged our knowledge of the factors that permit this range of function to be expressed, and in particular the complex inter-relations of cellular and non-cellular ele-ments in the liver that contribute to this. The functions expressed by the liver obviously vary over time. For exam-ple, growth and regeneration are associated with a functional repertoire that diVers from that of mature adult liver, as in most tissues proliferation is associated with reduced expression of normal diVerentiated function and expression, generally short-lived, of cell cycle and othe