S100A9 and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis: In both DEN-and NASH-induced HCC, pathways related to innate immunity were upregulated in KCs, as evidenced by a higher expression of genes coding for pro-inflammatory cyto- and chemokines such as S100a8, S100a9, Ccl4 and CCl5 (Figure 5A and 5B).