As macrophages release many cytokines and growth factors that directly impact HSCs during liver fibrosis (8, 14), we ablated the Socs1 gene selectively in HSCs using the Cre recombinase expressed under the promoter of lecithin retinol acyltransferase (LRAT) involved in retinol storage in HSCs (28, 29). The gene discussed is SOCS1; the disease is Hepatic fibrosis.