ATG7 and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease: To analyze the relevance of our findings to human liver disease and hepatocarcinogenesis, we defined a Atg7-KO gene signature (differentially expressed genes in liver tissues from Atg7-KO mice compared to control mice) and compared it to the transcriptome profile of 72 human non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) liver tissues with known disease severity.