SMO and congenital secretory chloride diarrhea 1: To address the limitations of former human studies, and potentially reconcile these with our own observations, in this paper we specifically addressed: 1) Whether canonical Hh/Pc/SMO/GLI-mediated signaling participates in regulation of the human LPC niche in vivo; 2) Clarification of whether GLI-mediated signaling is driven through Pc/SMO in other intrahepatic cell populations in human CLD; 3) The contribution of GLI inhibition to LPC viability, proliferation and gene expression in culture.