Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Aug 28, 2025; 31(32): 104277
Published online Aug 28, 2025. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v31.i32.104277
Sex based relative expression of estrogen receptors and tumor necrosis factor-alpha in liver affects hepatitis C virus viral pathogenesis
Sarah Groover, Sarah Addison, Savannah Nicks, Mitchelle Mwangi, Amy Brooks, Anil Kaul, Rashmi Kaul
Sarah Groover, Sarah Addison, Savannah Nicks, Mitchelle Mwangi, Amy Brooks, Rashmi Kaul, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa, OK 74017, United States
Sarah Groover, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87106, United States
Anil Kaul, Health Care Administration, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa, OK 74017, United States
Author contributions: Groover S, Kaul R and Kaul A designed and coordinated the study; Groover S, Addison S, Nicks S, Mwangi M, and Brooks A performed the experiments, acquired and analyzed data; Groover S and Kaul R interpreted the data; Groover S, Kaul R, Addison S, Nicks, S, Mwangi M, and Brooks A wrote the manuscript; All authors approved the final version of the article.
Supported by Cancer Sucks, Bixby, Oklahoma Research Grant.
Institutional review board statement: The study received approval from the Institutional Review Board at the University of Minnesota under Exemption IV (No. 2023012).
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: This study does not involve any animal experiments.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Rashmi Kaul, PhD, Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, 1111 W 17th St, Tulsa, OK 74017, United States. rashmi.kaul10@okstate.edu
Received: December 16, 2024
Revised: March 27, 2025
Accepted: August 6, 2025
Published online: August 28, 2025
Processing time: 254 Days and 6.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Our study, for the first time, demonstrates an increase in expression of estrogen receptor (ER) β compared to ERα in the liver of normal males and females. In addition, ERβ message RNA expression was found to be decreased in hepatitis C virus (HCV)/cirrhosis and HCV/hepatocellular carcinoma livers, while tumor necrosis factor-α expression was increased. Further analysis of the data revealed sex-specific correlations between ERα and ERβ. These findings suggest that changes in ERβ expression are associated with worsening HCV-related disease, and may be one of the sex-dependent factors in cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma pathogenesis.