Further data revealed that many KRT19+ or KRT7+ ductular reactive cells co-expressed Epcam, suggesting that these ductular reactive cells might be partially originated from HPCs, which was further verified in PBC and NAFLD as evidenced with that α-SMA+ area was positively correlated with KRT19+ area, and KRT19+ area was significantly positively correlated with Epcam+ area. Here, KRT19 is linked to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.