ATG5 and Hepatic fibrosis: Hernandez-Gea et al. (2012) [80] found that enhancing lipophagy activates hepatic stellate cells in mice or humans, exacerbating liver fibrosis; inhibiting ATGs such as Atg5 and Atg7 can alleviate liver fibrosis, indicating that reducing lipophagy may be a way to inhibit HSC activation.