2.17. Liver Histopathology

Liver tissue samples were fixed in 4% formalin and processed for embedding and sectioning. Liver sections (5 µm) were stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E). The quantitative scoring of H&E-stain-based liver tissue sections was conducted according to the previous methods with slight modifications, regarding steatosis [31,32]. Briefly, each section was examined by a specialist who was blinded to the sample information and hepatic steatosis and inflammation scores were evaluated. The degree of steatosis was graded ‘0’ to ‘10’ based on the average percent of fat-accumulated hepatocyte per field at 4 or 20 × magnification under H&E staining (grading 0, <5% of fat accumulation and grading 10,  >75% of fat accumulation).