Autoimmune Hepatitis and Stellate Cells; an Insight into the Role of Autophagy.

Autoimmune hepatitis is a necroinflammatory process of liver, featuring interface hepatitis by T cells, macrophages and plasma cells that invade to periportal parenchyma. In this process a variety of cytokines is secreted and liver tissue undergoes fibrogenesis, that cause apoptosis of hepatocytes. Autophagy is a complementary mechanism for restraining intracellular pathogens to which the innate immune system does not provide an efficient endocytosis. Hepatocytes with their particular regenerative features are normally in a quiescent state, and, autophagy controls the accumulation of excess products, therefore the liver serves as a basic model for the study of autophagy. Impairment of autophagy in liver causes the accumulation of damaged organelles, misfolded proteins and exceeded lipids in hepatocytes as seen in metabolic diseases. In this review, we introduce autoimmune hepatitis in association with autophagy signaling. We also discuss some genes and proteins of autophagy, their regulatory roles in activation of hepatic stellate cells and the importance of lipophagy and tyrosine kinase in hepatic fibrogenesis. In order to provide a comprehensive overview on the regulatory role of autophagy in autoimmune hepatitis, a pathway analysis of autophagy in autoimmune hepatitis is also included in this article.