CD9 and Hepatic fibrosis: We validated these transcriptomic findings at the protein level using a bespoke MultiOmyx liver multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) assay in an independent MASLD histological dataset (n = 43), confirming a statistically significant positive correlation of hepatic HLA-DR+CD9+CD14+ SAMac numbers with liver fibrosis stage (Fig. 3b).