VIM and hepatocellular carcinoma: Then, LFs driven from human normal liver were cultured with conditioned medium from either Huh7 TIMP-1 or Huh7 Vector cells, and we found that the viability, proliferation, migration and invasion of LFs were notably enhanced, and the expression of CAF markers including α-SMA, FAP and vimentin in LFs was significantly increased by conditioned medium from Huh7 TIMP-1 cells, which strongly supports that the TIMP-1 secreted by HCC cells in the tumor microenvironment initiates the transformation from LFs to CAFs.