Furthermore, our study not only demonstrated that transplantation of BM-MSCs alleviated liver fibrosis but also revealed that this alleviation effect was due to the elevated expression of MMP13 (Fig. 5a, b), which was consistent with previous studies reported MMPs especially MMP13 was the major interstitial collagenase in rodents, played a crucial role in degrading fibrous collagen [19–22]. This evidence concerns the gene MMP1 and Hepatic fibrosis.