SMO and Hepatic fibrosis: Meanwhile, in liver fibrosis, the activated HSCs induced by TGF-β1 are capable of producing Hh ligands that bind to their patched receptor (Choi et al. 2011; Feng et al. 2019), releasing smoothened transmembrane protein (SMO) which stimulates the activation and nuclear translocation of the Gli transcription factors (Jiayuan et al. 2020).