G C A T T A C G G C A T genes Review Network Modeling Approaches and Applications to Unravelling Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Montgomery Blencowe 1,2 , Tilan Karunanayake 1, Julian Wier 1, Neil Hsu 1 and Xia Yang 1,2,3,* 1 Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles, 610 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA;
[email protected] (M.B.);
[email protected] (T.K.);
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[email protected] (N.H.) 2 Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, 610 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA 3 Interdepartmental Program of Bioinformatics, University of California, Los Angeles, 610 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 22 October 2019; Accepted: 22 November 2019; Published: 24 November 2019 Abstract: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a progressive condition of the liver encompassing a range of pathologies including steatosis, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Research into this disease is imperative due to its rapid growth in prevalence, economic burden, and current lack of FDA approved therapies. NAFLD involves a highly complex etiology that calls for multi-tissue multi-omics network approaches to uncover the pathogenic genes and processes, diagnostic biomarkers, and potential therapeutic strategies. In this review, we first present a basic overview of disease pathogenesis, risk factors, and remaining knowledge gaps, followed by discussions of the need and concepts of multi-tissue multi-omics approaches, various network methodologies and application examples in NAFLD research.