As demonstrated by a recent ex vivo research, QSG inhibited the proliferation and differentiation of cardiac fibroblasts, and reduced the collagen deposition in the infarct margins of HF rats, by inhibiting the expression of TGF-β1 and Smad3 and up-regulating the expression of Smad7 (Guo et al., 2016; Zeng et al., 2019). This evidence concerns the gene SMAD7 and hydrops fetalis.