Excessive alcohol consumption can disrupt the liver’s unique regenerative abilities by trapping cells in limbo between their functional and regenerative states, even after a patient stops drinking. Results of the study are published in the journal ‘Nature Communications’.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and collaborators at Duke University and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago. This in-between state is a result of inflammation disrupting how RNA is spliced during the protein-making process, the researchers found, providing scientists with new treatment pathways to explore for the deadly disease.

The liver has a remarkable ability to regenerate itself after damage or partial removal. However, it loses that ability in patients with alcohol-associated liver disease — the leading cause of liver-related mortality worldwide, resulting in roughly 3 million deaths annually.

“We knew that the liver stops functioning and stops regenerating in patients with alcohol-related hepatitis and cirrhosis, even when a patient has discontinued consuming alcohol, but we didn’t know why,” said U. of I. biochemistry professor, Auinash Kalsotra, who co-led the study with Duke University School of Medicine professor, Anna Mae Diehl.