In the future, it will be interesting to determine whether particular diets (i.e. high fat, high sucrose or western diets) further increase the susceptibility to steatosis and progression to steatohepatitis in mice lacking VLK in hepatocytes, and if expression or activity of VLK is downregulated in distinct subsets of hepatocytes of patients with hepatic steatosis and/or fibrosis. The gene discussed is PKDCC; the disease is fatty liver disease.