In addition, transcriptomic analysis reinforced these observations: upregulated DEGs were enriched in inflammation, cancer, and fibrosis pathways, a result that is consistent with the known association between advanced schistosomiasis and hepatocellular carcinoma (Darce et al., 2023) Downregulated DEGs, though fewer, implicated steroid hormone biosynthesis, aligning with reports that glucocorticoids suppress macrophage infiltration (Petrescu et al., 2017) and HSC activation via TGF-β inhibition (Bolkenius et al., 2004). Here, TGFB1 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.