Acetaminophen (APAP) overdose is the predominant cause of acute liver failure in the United States. Toxicity begins with a reactive metabolite that binds to proteins. In rodents, this leads to mitochondrial dysfunction and nuclear DNA fragmentation, resulting in necrotic cell death. While APAP metabolism is similar in humans, the later events resulting in toxicity have not been investigated in patients. In this study, levels of biomarkers of mitochondrial damage (glutamate dehydrogenase [GDH] and mitochondrial DNA [mtDNA]) and nuclear DNA fragments were measured in plasma from APAP-overdose patients. Overdose patients with no or minimal hepatic injury who had normal liver function tests (LTs) (referred to herein as the normal LT group) and healthy volunteers served as controls. Peak GDH activity and mtDNA concentration were increased in plasma from patients with abnormal LT. Peak nuclear DNA fragmentation in the abnormal LT cohort was also increased over that of controls. Parallel studies in mice revealed that these plasma biomarkers correlated well with tissue injury. Caspase-3 activity and cleaved caspase-3 were not detectable in plasma from overdose patients or mice, but were elevated after TNF-induced apoptosis, indicating that APAP overdose does not cause apoptosis. Thus, our results suggest that mitochondrial damage and nuclear DNA fragmentation are likely to be critical events in APAP hepatotoxicity in humans, resulting in necrotic cell death.

Background & Aims Full length keratin-18 (FL-K18) and High Mobility Group Box-1 (HMGB1) represent circulating indicators of necrosis during acetaminophen (APAP) hepatotoxicity in vivo. In addition, the caspase-cleaved fragment of K18 (cK18) and hyper-acetylated HMGB1 represent serum indicators of apoptosis and immune cell activation respectively. The study aim was to assess their mechanistic utility to establish the balance between apoptosis, necrosis and immune cell activation throughout the time course of clinical APAP hepatotoxicity. Methods HMGB1 (total, acetylated) and K18 (apoptotic, necrotic) were identified and quantified by novel LC-MS/MS assays in APAP overdose patients (n=78). Results HMGB1 (total; 15.4±1.9ng/ml, p<0.01, acetylated; 5.4±2.6ng/ml, p<0.001), cK18 (5649.8±721.0U/l, p<0.01) and FL-K18 (54770.2±6717.0U/l, p<0.005) were elevated in the sera of APAP overdose patients with liver injury compared to overdose patients without liver injury and healthy volunteers. HMGB1 and FL-K18 correlated with alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity (R2=0.60 and 0.58 respectively, p<0.0001) and prothrombin time (R2=0.62 and 0.71 respectively, p<0.0001). Increased total and acetylated HMGB1 and FL-K18 were associated with worse prognosis (King’s College Criteria) or patients that died/required liver transplant compared to spontaneous survivors (all p<0.05-0.001), a finding not reflected by ALT and supported by ROC analysis. Acetylated HMGB1 was a better predictor of outcome than the other markers of cell death. Conclusion K18 and HMGB1 represent blood-based tools to investigate the cell death balance clinical APAP hepatotoxicity. Activation of the immune response was seen later in the time course as shown by the distinct profile of acetylated HMGB1 and was associated with worse outcome.

Following acetaminophen (APAP) overdose there is an inflammatory response triggered by release of cellular contents from necrotic hepatocytes into systemic circulation which initiates the recruitment of neutrophils into the liver. It has been demonstrated that neutrophils do not contribute to APAP-induced liver injury, but their role and the role of NADPH oxidase in injury resolution is controversial. C57BL/6 mice were subjected to APAP overdose and neutrophil activation status was determined during liver injury and liver regeneration. Additionally, human APAP overdose patients (ALT: >800U/L) had serial blood draws during the injury and recovery phases for determination of neutrophil activation. Neutrophils in the peripheral blood of mice showed increasing activation status (CD11b expression and ROS priming) during and after the peak of injury but returned to baseline levels prior to complete injury resolution. Hepatic sequestered neutrophils showed an increased and sustained CD11b expression, but no ROS priming was observed. Confirming that NADPH oxidase is not critical to injury resolution, gp91phox-/- mice following APAP overdose displayed no alteration in injury resolution. Peripheral blood from APAP overdose patients also showed increased neutrophil activation status after the peak of liver injury and remained elevated until discharge from the hospital. In mice and humans, markers of activation, like ROS priming, were increased and sustained well after active liver injury had subsided. The similar findings between surviving patients and mice indicate neutrophil activation may be a critical event for host defense or injury resolution following APAP overdose, but not a contributing factor to APAP-induced injury.

Acetaminophen (APAP) overdose is a major cause of acute liver failure (ALF). Numerous studies have shown that APAP hepatotoxicity in mice involves mitochondrial dysfunction, and recent data suggest this is also the case in humans. We have previously shown that glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear DNA (nDNA) fragments can be measured in circulation of overdose patients as mechanistic biomarkers of mitochondrial damage and damage-associated molecular patterns. In the present study, our goal was to determine if these biomarkers are higher in serum from non-survivors of APAP-induced ALF (AALF) compared with survivors. GDH, mtDNA and nDNA fragments were measured in serum from AALF patients who did (n = 34) or did not (n = 35) recover. Importantly, all three were significantly increased in patients who died compared with those who survived (GDH: 450±73 vs. 930±145 U/L; mtDNA: 21±6 vs. 48±13 and 33±10 vs. 43±7 ng/mL for two different genes; nDNA fragments: 148±13 vs. 210±13 % of control). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses revealed that nDNA fragments, GDH and mtDNA were predictive of outcome (AUC, study admission: 0.73, 0.70 and 0.71 or 0.76, respectively, p < 0.05; AUC, time of peak ALT: 0.78, 0.71 and 0.71 or 0.76, respectively, p < 0.05) and the results were similar to those from the model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) (AUC, peak MELD: 0.77, p < 0.05). Conclusions Our data suggest that patients with more mitochondrial damage are less likely to survive, demonstrating that mitochondria are central in the mechanisms of APAP hepatotoxicity in humans. Clinically, serum nDNA fragments, GDH and mtDNA could be useful as part of a panel of biomarkers to predict patient outcome.

Acetaminophen (APAP) is a widely used analgesic. However, APAP overdose is hepatotoxic and is the primary cause of acute liver failure in the developed world. The mechanism of APAP-induced liver injury begins with protein binding and involves mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress. Recent efforts to discover blood biomarkers of mitochondrial damage have identified increased plasma glutamate dehydrogenase activity and mitochondrial DNA concentration in APAP overdose patients. However, a problem with these markers is that they are too large to be released from cells without cell death or loss of membrane integrity. Metabolomic studies are more likely to reveal biomarkers that are useful at early time points, before injury begins. Similar to earlier work, our metabolomic studies revealed that acylcarnitines are elevated in serum from mice after treatment with toxic doses of APAP. Importantly, a comparison with furosemide demonstrated that increased serum acylcarnitines are specific for mitochondrial dysfunction. However, when we measured these compounds in plasma from humans with liver injury after APAP overdose, we could not detect any significant differences from control groups. Further experiments with mice showed that N-acetylcysteine, the antidote for APAP overdose in humans, can reduce acylcarnitine levels in serum. Altogether, our data do not support the clinical measurement of acylcarnitines in blood after APAP overdose due to the standard N-acetylcysteine treatment in patients, but strongly suggest that acylcarnitines would be useful mechanistic biomarkers in other forms of liver injury involving mitochondrial dysfunction.

Acetaminophen (APAP)-induced acute liver failure (ALF) remains a major clinical problem. Although a majority of patients recovers after severe liver injury, a subpopulation of patients proceeds to ALF. Bile acids are generated in the liver and accumulate in blood during liver injury, and as such, have been proposed as biomarkers for liver injury and dysfunction. The goal of this study was to determine whether individual bile acid levels could determine outcome in patients with APAP-induced ALF (AALF). Serum bile acid levels were measured in AALF patients using mass spectrometry. Bile acid levels were elevated 5-80-fold above control values in injured patients on day 1 after the overdose and decreased over the course of hospital stay. Interestingly, glycodeoxycholic acid (GDCA) was significantly increased in non-surviving AALF patients compared with survivors. GDCA values obtained at peak alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and from day 1 of admission indicated GDCA could predict survival in these patients by receiver-operating characteristic analysis (AUC = 0.70 for day 1, AUC = 0.68 for peak ALT). Of note, AALF patients also had significantly higher levels of serum bile acids than patients with active cholestatic liver injury. These data suggest measurements of GDCA in this patient cohort modestly predicted outcome and may serve as a prognostic biomarker. Furthermore, accumulation of bile acids in serum or plasma may be a result of liver cell dysfunction and not cholestasis, suggesting elevation of circulating bile acid levels may be a consequence and not a cause of liver injury.

It has been suggested that acetaminophen (APAP)-protein adducts can be measured in circulation to diagnose APAP-induced liver injury. However, the full time course of plasma adducts has not been studied specifically in early-presenting overdose patients. In fact, surprisingly little work has been done on the metabolism of APAP after overdose in general.We measured APAP, five APAP metabolites and APAP-protein adducts in plasma samples from early and late-presenting overdose patients, and APAP-protein adducts in culture medium from HepaRG cells.In contrast to earlier rodents studies, we found that APAP-protein adducts were lower at early time points and peaked around the time of peak liver injury, suggesting that these adduct levels may take longer to become elevated or remain elevated than previously thought.APAP and its major metabolites were elevated in plasma at early time points and rapidly decreased.Although clinical measurement of APAP-protein adducts holds promise as a diagnostic tool, we suggest caution in its interpretation in very early-presenting patients. Our data also support the idea that sulfation is saturated even at low doses but glucuronidation has a much higher capacity, highlighting the importance of glucuronidation in APAP metabolism.

Background and Aims Hypoxic hepatitis is a clinical condition precipitated by prolonged periods of oxygen deprivation to the liver. It can have several underlying causes. Despite its prevalence in critically ill patients, which can reach upwards of 10%, very little is known about the mechanisms of injury. Thus, we set out to measure previously identified circulating biomarkers in an attempt to describe mechanisms of injury following hypoxic hepatitis. Methods Plasma from patients diagnosed with hypoxic hepatitis was collected for this study. Biomarkers of hepatocellular injury, mitochondrial damage, and cell death were measured. These results were compared against results obtained from well characterized acetaminophen overdose patients. Results At peak injury, ALT measured 4082±606 U/L and gradually decreased over 5 days, corresponding to the clinically observed pattern of hypoxic hepatitis. Levels of GDH showed a similar pattern, but neither ALT nor GDH were significantly higher in these patients than in acetaminophen patients. Plasma levels of DNA fragments mimicked hepatocellular injury as measured by ALT and miRNA-122. Interestingly, we found a significant increase in caspase-cleaved cytokeratin-18; however, the full-length form greatly exceeded the cleaved form at the time of maximum injury (45837±12085 vs. 2528±1074 U/L). We also found an increase in acHMGB1 at later time points indicating a possible role of inflammation, but cytokine levels at these times were actually decreased relative to early time points. Conclusions The mechanism of injury following hypoxic hepatitis involves mitochondrial damage and DNA fragmentation. Importantly, necrosis, rather than apoptosis, is the main mode of cell death.