The gut–liver axis in immune remodeling of hepatic cirrhosis

Abstract

In healthy settings, the gut–liver axis allows host–microbiota communications and mediates immune homeostasis through bidirectional regulation. Meanwhile, in diseases, gut dysbiosis, combined with an impaired intestinal barrier, introduces pathogens and their toxic metabolites into the system, causing massive immune alternations in the liver and other extrahepatic organs. Accumulating evidence suggests that these immune changes are associated with the progression of many liver diseases, especially hepatic cirrhosis. Pathogen-associated molecular patterns that originated from gut microbes directly stimulate hepatocytes and liver immune cells through different pattern recognition receptors, a process further facilitated by damage-associated molecular patterns released from injured hepatocytes. Hepatic stellate cells, along with other immune cells, contribute to this proinflammatory and profibrogenic transformation. Moreover, cirrhosis-associated immune dysfunction, an imbalanced immune status characterized by systemic inflammation and immune deficiency, is linked to gut dysbiosis. Though the systemic inflammation hypothesis starts to link gut dysbiosis to decompensated cirrhosis from a clinical perspective, a clearer demonstration is still needed for the role of the gut–liver–immune axis in cirrhosis progression. This review discusses the different immune states of the gut–liver axis in both healthy and cirrhotic settings and, more importantly, summarizes the current evidence about how microbiota-derived immune remodeling contributes to the progression of hepatic cirrhosis via the gut–liver axis.