Gene expression analysis from whole liver tissue at different stages of fibrosis progression demonstrated a clear up-regulation of intrahepatic ccr2 (F0-1 compared to F4 fibrosis, p = 0.021), ccr5 (F0-1 compared to F4 fibrosis, p<0.0001) and ccr1 (F0-1 compared to F4 fibrosis, p = 0.0008) in fibrosis (Fig. 5A), which matches well with the observed accumulation of monocytes in the fibrotic/cirrhotic liver (Fig. 3). This evidence concerns the gene CCR2 and fibrosis.