CD68 and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis: Interestingly, although the histology evidenced the absence of macroscopic alterations, the increases of α-SMA- and CD68-positive cells in the liver, although limited, indicate that a mild activation of HSCs (also confirmed by the increase of α-SMA and Col1A1 mRNA expression in liver tissue, and consistent to what has been observed analyzing the transcriptome of obese and NAFLD/NASH patients [50]), together with a slight increase in liver macrophages are present in the liver of rats fed with a Western diet, and the increased number of LDs could be responsible of this effect.