Stiffness is associated with hepatic stellate cell heterogeneity during liver fibrosis

• DOI: 10.1152/ajpgi.00254.2021
• Publication Date: 2021-12-23T17:08:25Z
• Authors: Enis Kostallari; Bo Wei; Delphine Sicard; Jiahui Li; Shawna A. Cooper; Jinhang Gao; Mrunal Dehankar; Ying Li; Sheng Cao; Meng Yin; Daniel J. Tschump...; Vijay H. Shah
• Keywords: Hepatic stellate cell; Hepatic fibrosis; Type I collagen

The fibrogenic wound-healing response in liver increases stiffness. Here, macro and microheterogeneity of stiffness correlate with HSC heterogeneity a hepatic fibrosis mouse model. Fibrogenic HSCs localized stiff collagen-high areas upregulate the expression focal adhesion molecule FHL2, which, turn, promotes extracellular matrix protein expression. These results demonstrate that at whole organ, lobular, cellular level drives an amplification loop fibrogenesis through specific molecular pathways.