Prior to the presence of cirrhosis, in ARLD and NAFLD, hepatic macrophages become activated by LPS, IFN-ɣ, and GM-CSF signalling and show pro-inflammatory cytokine/chemokine secretion (IL-6, IL-1β, and CCL2) (Mandrekar and Szabo, 2009; Gao et al., 2019; Remmerie et al., 2020b). The gene discussed is CCL2; the disease is metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.