Role of STAT3 in liver regeneration: survival, DNA synthesis, inflammatory reaction and liver mass recovery

The hepatoprotective effect of interleukin-6 (IL-6)/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) has been well documented. However, reports on the role of IL-6/STAT3 in liver regeneration are conflicting probably due to the fact that the model of Stat3 knockout mice were complicated with obesity and fatty liver, which may cause some secondary effects on liver regeneration. To study the direct role of STAT3 and to circumvent the problems of obesity and fatty liver in liver regeneration, we generated conditional STAT3 knockout in the liver (L-Stat3−/−) using a transthyretin-driven Cre-lox method. The L-Stat3−/− mice were born with the expected Mendelian frequency and showed no obesity or other obvious phenotype. After partial hepatectomy, mortality in the L-Stat3−/− mice was significantly higher than the littermate Stat3f/+ controls in the early time points (