Fig. 2. Fibrosis associated transcriptional alterations occur in HSCs during experimental acute liver injury.

A Mice were injected once with CCl₄ and HSCs were isolated at indicated timepoints and their RNA subjected to bulk sequencing. As a control, healthy (non-injected) mice were used. B ALT values indicate acute liver injury and recovery. C Sirius red staining shows necrotic areas after 1 and 3 days followed by collagen deposition after 7 days. Barplot represents quantification of positive area. D Global transcriptional alterations of isolated HSCs by PC analysis. E Heatmap of differentially upregulated genes 24 h after a single CCl₄ injection compared to HSCs isolated from healthy mice with respective GO analysis. F GSEA of HSCs isolated 24 h after CCl₄ compared to qHSC using the fibrogenic aHSC program defined in Fig.1. GSEA was performed with the “gene set” permutation type. ns p > 0.05, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.