PCNA and Hepatic fibrosis: Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) staining and BrdU staining increased in AdNDRG2 group compared with PBS or AdLacZ group while TUNEL analysis revealed that AdNDRG2 had no effect on inducing hepatocyte apoptosis (Figure 7) (Figure S3), which indicating that AdNDRG2 not only inhibited HSCs activation and ECM accumulation, but also facilitated the regression of liver fibrosis by enhancing the proliferation of hepatocytes without inducing apoptosis.