Spotlight on liver macrophages for halting injury and progression in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

There is an unmet need for a better understanding of disease pathogenesis from hepatic fat accumulation to disease progression with inflammation and fibrosis. We expect that future research will uncover additional objects/pathways as treatment targets. We speculate that this will involve better characterization of the gut microbiome, damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPS) or molecules and pathways involved in the development of DAMPS, and advanced molecular biology studies including single-cell sequencing of macrophage subpopulations. In addition, we speculate that studies focusing on pharmaceuticals that improve insulin resistance, diminish the metabolic syndrome, and reduce fibrosis will prevail.