KRT19 and hepatitis A virus infection: In hepatitis cases, gremlin expression correlated with the stage (r = 0.699, p = 0.003) (Figure 4e) and CK19 positivity (r = 0.223, p = 0.04) (Table 6), but not with the stage in the cirrhosis group due to the fixed stage (stage 6 HAI by definition).