Study Reveals Impact of Liver Metabolic Zonation on Premalignant Cells
A recent study published in Science has uncovered how liver metabolic zonation influences the fate of premalignant cells. Researchers, including Guo, Liang, Chung, and Li, have demonstrated that non-malignant cells with cancer-associated mutations are prevalent in healthy tissues but rarely progress to cancer. The study focused on liver metabolic zonation, which is characterized by gene expression patterns and metabolite and oxygen gradients along the liver lobule axis. The research tracked GS+ cells in the livers of mice at different time intervals after mutation induction. It was found that mutant hepatocytes persisted in zone 1 but declined in zone 3 over time. Spatial transcriptomic analysis revealed that all mutant hepatocytes adopted a zone 3 expression profile, regardless of their location within the liver, but their spatial distribution varied. 
