Omics-based Predictors of NAFLD/Potential NASH

The cascade of care for the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and its progression to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) requires crossing the barriers for their diagnosis and treatment. The multifactorial nature of NAFLD/NASH limits their diagnosis by a single factor solely. This project aimed at developing a powerful composite marker panel based on multi-omics technologies to detect NAFLD without or with fibrosis (potential for NASH) in high-risk populations (obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertensive, dyslipidemia). This project is an exploratory study to unrevealing the intra-heterogeneity and inter-similarities of NAFLD without and with fibrosis versus those of healthy individuals. The molecular and clinical characteristics of 450 participants (225 adults aged 30-60 years and 225 children aged 12 -18 years) will be investigated; 150 NAFLD patients without, 150 NAFLD patients with fibrosis (potential NASH) compared to 150 healthy individuals. Detection of genetic polymorphism of SNP of 10 gene variants involved with NAFLD without and with fibrosis, gene discovery and molecular diagnosis of dyslipidemia using next-generation sequencing and whole-exome sequencing (genomics), the expression level for the top 5 of 168-panel genes of plasma miRNAs (epi-genomics), the glycosylation pattern of five glycoproteins (proteomics), salivary analysis of ten microbiomes and five microbial-related metabolites (metabolomics) will be investigated. Eventually, the development of precision therapies to target NAFLD without and with fibrosis and possibly reverse fibrosis could be achieved.