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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Jun 21.
Published in final edited form as: Gastroenterology. 2008 May;134(6):1655–1669. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2008.03.003

Figure 4.

Figure 4

Possible links between stellate cells, fibrosis, regeneration, and cancer. Upon liver injury, activated stellate cells release paracrine factors that may promote progenitor cell expansion, the outcome of which could be either hepatic regeneration and/or promotion of hepatocellular cancer. The possibility also exists that stellate cells may harbor the potential to transdifferentiate into progenitor cells directly, which remains speculative. Moreover, fibrosis promotes hepatocarcinogenesis through unknown mechanisms that may include release of survival signals.