Transcriptional regulation of hepatic stellate cell activation.

The hepatic stellate cell (HSC) is now well established as the key cellular element involved in the development of hepatic fibrosis and because of this there is considerable interest in establishing the molecular events that trigger and perpetuate HSC activation. HSC activation at the level of gene transcription requires the coordinated activity of several key transcriptional regulators of the HSC genome. The considerable advances that have been made in the past five years into the mechanisms by which specific families of transcription factors regulate the profibrogenic characteristics of the activated HSC are reviewed.