TGFB1 and Hepatic fibrosis: To assess whether LRRC1 contributes to HSC activation in liver fibrosis, human HSCs (LX-2) and isolated rat primary HSCs (pHSCs) were separately stimulated with TGF-β1 (5 ng/mL) for 12 h, 24 h, or 48 h to induce activation, and the protein expression of LRRC1 was observed to gradually increase from 0 h to 48 h in both LX-2 cells and pHSCs, a finding that was consistent with the increasing trend of protein expression of Col-I, Collagen III (Col-III), and α-SMA (Figure 3A,B), which revealed that LRRC1 was a possible TGF-β1-responsive gene.