Together with a study from Lin et al., in which they report that HIV and HCV independently affected the progression of hepatic fibrosis through the ROS-NF-κB-TIMP1 pathway[34], our data showed that HIV+HCV co-culture directly affected HSCs in the liver, leading to increased production of profibrogenic cytokines and ECM. This evidence concerns the gene TIMP1 and Hepatic fibrosis.