Table 1.

Different therapeutic interventions for liver fibrosis.

Agents or methods	Target effects	Reference
siRNA targeting KIR	Increases the degranulation, activation and antifibrogenic function of NK cells; attenuates HSCs activation, serum alanine aminotransferase levels and hepatic fibrosis	Muhanna et al. 40
IFN-α	Increases the TRAIL expression of NK cells, and controls virus replication	Stegmann et al. 69
Mycelium cordyceps sinensis	Increases the frequency of hepatic NK cells expressed high level of NKG2D and the apoptosis of HSCs, improves liver function, and attenuates liver inflammation and fibrosis	Peng et al. 99
Salvia Miltiorrhiza	Increases the frequency of NK cells, and activities of NKG2D and Nkp46 on NK cells, inhibits activation of HSCs in vivo and in vitro, and promotes the activities of NK cells by increasing the expressions of IFN-γ	Peng et al. 100
Yu Gan Long	Decreases liver fibrosis biomarkers including collagen IV, type III precollagen, hyaluronuc acid and laminin, α-smooth muscle actin, and liver fibrosis proteins such as p-Smad2, p-Smad3 and Smad4; inhibits the expression of IL-1β, IL-6, IL-4, IL-17α but promotes IFN-γ expression	Xia et al. 101
IFN-γ	Increases the antifibrotic potency and improves the general safety profile in vivo by HSC-specific delivery of IFN-γ	van Dijk et al. 102