HSPA5 and Hepatic fibrosis: Duan et al. (2019) showed that the level of CHOP, a vital factor in the ER stress-mediated apoptosis pathway, was significantly increased in mice at 6 and 10 weeks following infection with S. japonicum. The study indicated that ER stress may be involved in S. japonicum infection-induced hepatic fibrosis. Moreover, Yu et al. (2016) showed that treatment with taurine, an inhibitor of ER stress, significantly suppressed the egg-induced hepatic granuloma and alleviated hepatic fibrosis in mice at 8 weeks post-infection, along with marked reduction of the expression of GRP78.