ACTA1 and Hepatic fibrosis: Although these possibilities are not mutually exclusive, to investigate whether synoviolin expression alters the apoptosis of activated HSCs between wild-type and synoviolin+/− mice, we initially analyzed the number of activated HSCs (α-SMA-positive cells) in liver sections between wt (n = 14) and Syno+/− mice (n = 12) using a liver fibrosis model induced by the chronic administration of CCl4 (Fig. 3A).