NFKB1 and fibrosis: Although we found about 2 folds upregulation in IRF7 expression of HCV patients with no fibrosis (F0) compared to controls (data not shown), our data did not reveal any differential regulation of IRF7 and NF-κB1 when the comparison was set between early and late fibrosis groups; it is likely that the expression of both of these nuclear factors is regulated at post transcriptional or post-translational levels.