ACTA2 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Makino et al. (2018) demonstrated that elevated CCN2 expression positively correlated with activated HSCs, indicated by smooth muscle actin (ACTA2) expression, in both mouse and human liver tumors. Furthermore, the authors showed that anti-CCN2 reduced IL-6 production in LX-2 cells and inhibited STAT3 activation in HepG2 (human HCC cell line) cells (Makino et al., 2018).