ArticleBMC pharmacology & toxicology2018
Artesunate may inhibit liver fibrosis via the FAK/Akt/β-catenin pathway in LX-2 cells.
Article in BMC pharmacology & toxicology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Therapeutic Effects of Active Components from Food-Medicine Plants on Liver Fibrosis.Journal of inflammation research · 2026Review
- Artemisinin and Its Derivatives: Promising Therapeutic Agents for Age-Related Macular Degeneration.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Artesunate: A Review of Its Potential Therapeutic Effects and Mechanisms in Digestive Diseases.Pharmaceutics · 2025Review
- Integrin αM promotes macrophage alternative M2 polarization in hyperuricemia-related chronic kidney disease.MedComm · 2024Article
- DCDC2 inhibits hepatic stellate cell activation and ameliorates CClScientific reports · 2024Article
- The role of PI3k/AKT signaling pathway in attenuating liver fibrosis: a comprehensive review.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Review
- Recent Advances in Research on Active Compounds Against Hepatic Fibrosis.Current medicinal chemistry · 2024Review
- [Establishment of a reporter system for estimating activation of human hepatic stellate cells based onBeijing da xue xue bao. Yi xue ban = Journal of Peking University. Health sciences · 2023Article
- Mining host candidate regulators of schistosomiasis-induced liver fibrosis in response to artesunate therapy through transcriptomics approach.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2023Article
- Lycopene inhibits endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition of choroidal vascular endothelial cells in laser-induced mouse choroidal neovascularization.Journal of cellular and molecular medicine · 2023Article
- Module 4-Deficient CCN2/Connective Tissue Growth Factor Attenuates the Progression of Renal Fibrosis via Suppression of Focal Adhesion Kinase Phosphorylation in Tubular Epithelial Cells.Molecular and cellular biology · 2023Article
- Mechanical homeostasis imbalance in hepatic stellate cells activation and hepatic fibrosis.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2023Review
- Characterization of focal adhesion proteins in rodent hepatic stellate cells.Histochemistry and cell biology · 2022Article
- [FUT8 modulates galectin-3 expression to regulate TGF-β1-mediated fibrosis of lung fibroblasts].Nan fang yi ke da xue xue bao = Journal of Southern Medical University · 2022Article
- Development of human iPSC-derived quiescent hepatic stellate cell-like cells for drug discovery and in vitro disease modeling.Stem cell reports · 2021Article
- Article
- A first-in-class anticancer dual HDAC2/FAK inhibitors bearing hydroxamates/benzamides capped by pyridinyl-1,2,4-triazoles.European journal of medicinal chemistry · 2021Article
- FAK inhibitors as promising anticancer targets: present and future directions.Future medicinal chemistry · 2021Review
- Anti-malarial drug: the emerging role of artemisinin and its derivatives in liver disease treatment.Chinese medicine · 2021Review
- Suppressing Cdk5 Activity by Luteolin Inhibits MPPMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAn increasing number of studies are investigating the effects of Chinese medicine on hepatic fibrosis, but only few studies have examined the anti-fibrogenic properties of Artesunate (ART). The aim of the present study was to explore the anti-fibrotic effects of ART on LX-2 cells, the human HSC cell line, and to determine potential molecular mechanisms via the focal adhesion kinase (FAK)/ protein kinase B (Akt)/ β-catenin pathway.
methodsLX-2 cells were stimulated with different concentration of ART (0, 12.5, 25 and 50 μg/ml) for 12, 24, 48 or 72 h, their proliferation was analyzed using the Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay. LX-2 cells were treated with different doses of ART (0, 12.5, 25 and 50 μg/ml) for 24 h, their apoptosis was measured using flow cytometry, the levels of mRNAs encoding collagen I or α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) were determined using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and the levels of key proteins in the FAK/Akt/β-catenin signaling pathway were assessed by western blotting. Specific inhibitors of FAK were added to the LX-2 cells cultures to explore the potential signaling.
resultsExposing LX-2 cells to ART efficiently inhibited their proliferation, significantly promoted early apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner, and markedly downregulated the mRNA expression of α-SMA and collagen I. In addition, ART, similar to FAK inhibitor PF562271 significantly inhibited the FAK/Akt/β-catenin signaling pathway by reducing the levels of phosphorylated FAK, Akt and GSK-3β.
conclusionsOur present study shows that ART could regulate the proliferation, apoptosis and activation of LX-2. Meanwhile, the anti-fibrogenic mechanisms of ART was correlated with FAK/Akt/β-catenin pathway. Future research should verify and extend these findings, as well as explore other molecules and therefore serve as useful therapeutic targets.
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