Reply to: “Lack of hepatic autophagy promotes severity of liver injury but not steatosis”

We read with great pleasure the comment by Ding et al. on our recent study reporting that rare genetic variants impairing the function of autophagy related-7 (ATG7) predispose individuals at risk of fatty liver disease (FLD) associated with metabolic dysfunction (MAFLD) to the development of severe fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.1,2 In our study, we firstly highlighted an enrichment in rare mutations in ATG7 in patients with severe MAFLD compared to healthy individuals. We then validated the impact of rare ATG7 variants on liver disease in the population-based UK Biobank cohort, in a cohort of individuals with metabolic dysfunction, and in a large liver biopsy cohort (LBC).