Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (
NAFLD) or metabolic-associated
fatty liver disease has been characterized by the
lipid accumulation with injury of hepatocytes and has become one of the most common chronic
liver diseases in the world. The complex mechanisms of
NAFLD formation are still under identification.
Carnitine palmitoyltransferase-II (
CPT-II) on inner mitochondrial membrane (IMM) regulates long chain
fatty acid β-oxidation, and its abnormality has had more and more attention paid to it by basic and clinical research in
NAFLD. The sequences of its
peptide chain and
DNA nucleotides have been identified, and the catalytic activity of
CPT-II is affected on its gene mutations, deficiency, enzymatic thermal instability, circulating
carnitine level and so on. Recently, the
CPT-II dysfunction has been discovered in models of liver
lipid accumulation. Meanwhile, the malignant transformation of hepatocyte-related CD44+ stem T cell activation, high levels of
tumor-related
biomarkers (AFP, GPC3) and abnormal activation of Wnt3a expression as a key signal molecule of the Wnt/β-
catenin pathway run parallel to the alterations of hepatocyte pathology. This review focuses on some of the progress of
CPT-II inactivity on IMM with
liver fatty accumulation as a possible novel pathogenesis for
NAFLD in hepatocarcinogenesis.