Aveline Filliol, Yoshinobu Saito, Ajay Nair, Dianne H Dapito, Le-Xing Yu, Aashreya Ravichandra, Sonakshi Bhattacharjee, Silvia Affo, Naoto Fujiwara, Hua Su, Qiuyan Sun, Thomas M Savage, John R Wilson-Kanamori, Jorge M Caviglia, LiKang Chin, Dongning Chen, Xiaobo Wang, Stefano Caruso, Jin Ku Kang, Amit Dipak Amin, Sebastian Wallace, Ross Dobie, Deqi Yin, Oscar M Rodriguez-Fiallos, Chuan Yin, Adam Mehal, Benjamin Izar, Richard A Friedman, Rebecca G Wells, Utpal B Pajvani, Yujin Hoshida, Helen E Remotti, Nicholas Arpaia, Jessica Zucman-Rossi, Michael Karin, Neil C Henderson, Ira Tabas, Robert F Schwabe
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the fourth leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide, develops almost exclusively in patients with chronic liver disease and advanced fibrosis1,2 . Here we interrogated functions of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), the main source of liver fibroblasts3 , during hepatocarcinogenesis. Genetic depletion, activation or inhibition of HSCs in mouse models of HCC revealed their overall tumour-promoting role. HSCs were enriched in the preneoplastic environment, where they closely interacted with hepatocytes and modulated hepatocarcinogenesis by regulating hepatocyte proliferation and death...
October 2022: Nature