Liver scarring cells
You want them quiet. They are the single hinge between inflammation and permanent scarring.
In depth
Quiet cells that sit between the hepatocytes and the blood. Injury wakes them, and once awake they manufacture the collagen that becomes fibrosis. Almost every anti-fibrotic idea in hepatology is an attempt to keep them asleep.
What drives it
Acetaldehyde load increases it.
10.3748/wjg.v20.i47.17756 — Verbatim, from the title of a Lieber-group primary: 'polyunsaturated LECITHIN prevents acetaldehyde-mediated hepatic collagen accumulation by stimulating collagenase activity in cultured lipocytes' — lipocytes being the older name for stellate cells. The paper names acetaldehyde as the agent and collagen as the outcome. this source is cited by its title alone, without a resolvable identifier; the link rests on the mechanism the title names and is the least-sourced link in this chain. doi 10.3748/wjg.v20.i47.17756
Reduces scarring increases it.
TGF-β1 is the canonical activator of hepatic stellate cells across hepatology. Verbatim (Cao Q, Mak KM, Lieber CS, doi 10.1067/mlc.2002.121853): 'DILINOLEOYLPHOSPHATIDYLCHOLINE prevents transforming growth factor-BETA1-mediated collagen accumulation in cultured rat hepatic stellate cells.' The title names TGF-β1 as the agent and stellate cells as the target. that paper is cited here by its title, which states the mechanism, and a second source states it in its text: 'activated hepatic stellate cells lay down a fibrotic extracellular matrix'. doi 10.1067/mlc.2002.121853 · PMC7530314
Fluke burden increases it.
Egg-granuloma cytokines activate hepatic stellate cells into collagen-secreting myofibroblasts. doi 10.1186/s13071-023-05863-5
What it drives
It increases Tissue scarring.
Verbatim (PMC7530314): 'activated hepatic stellate cells lay down a fibrotic extracellular matrix composed of collagens type I and III'. And the PPC mechanism runs exactly here: Cao Q, Mak KM, Lieber CS, 'DILINOLEOYLPHOSPHATIDYLCHOLINE prevents transforming growth factor-BETA1-mediated collagen accumulation in cultured rat hepatic stellate cells' (doi 10.1067/mlc.2002.121853). That PPC paper is a reference-list string, recorded not cited; the Hepatic Stellate Cells → Liver Fibrosis link itself rests on. doi 10.1067/mlc.2002.121853 · PMC7530314
Blends that modulate it
Each blend page names this pathway and carries the study behind its claim.
See it on the map
Open the causal map to follow this pathway upstream and downstream, arrow by arrow, each with its study.