Fig 6D shows that HCV–induced occludin up-regulation was fully abrogated by ADRP knockdown, while no effect on occludin expression was observed in uninfected cells. In order to extend our in vitro observations to the human infection, we measured the ADRP and occludin mRNA levels in the liver of 50 patients with chronic hepatitis C (Table 1). In infected human livers, a significant correlation between the occludin and ADRP mRNA expression levels was observed (Fig 6E, Spearman r = 0.5236, p<0.0001), further suggesting that ADRP and occludin increases could be two interconnected phenomena. This evidence concerns the gene OCLN and infection.