STUB1 and steatosis: The concomitant age-dependent microvesicular steatosis and hepatocyte ballooning observed in CHIP−/−-livers relative to corresponding WT-controls (Fig. 2) led us to determine through quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analyses of hepatic mRNA expression, whether lipogenic and pro-inflammatory/inflammatory cytokine/chemokine genes were upregulated and/or antilipogenic genes down-regulated (Fig. S4).