ArticleThe European respiratory journal2023
Inhibition of MRTF activation as a clinically achievable anti-fibrotic mechanism for pirfenidone.
Article in The European respiratory journal, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Clearing the Pulmonary Traffic Jam With Dual-Enzyme Inhalable Nanoparticles Restore Airflow and Reverse Fibrotic Remodeling.Advanced healthcare materials · 2026Article
- Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis from a multiscale mechanobiology perspective: Mechanisms and future therapeutic prospects.iScience · 2026Review
- Targeting CDK7/12/13 functional synergism reverses myofibroblast activation and ameliorates lung fibrosis.iScience · 2025Article
- Fibrosis: cross-organ biology and pathways to development of innovative drugs.Nature reviews. Drug discovery · 2025Review
- Tension-induced organelle stress: an emerging target in fibrosis.Trends in pharmacological sciences · 2025Review
- Post-marketing safety concerns with pirfenidone and nintedanib: an analysis of individual case safety reports from the FDA adverse event reporting system database and the Japanese adverse drug event report databases.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- Imperfect wound healing sets the stage for chronic diseases.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2024Review
- Reusable tutorials for using cloud-based computing environments for the analysis of bacterial gene expression data from bulk RNA sequencing.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2024Article
- Investigation of a UPR-Related Gene Signature Identifies the Pro-Fibrotic Effects of Thrombospondin-1 by Activating CD47/ROS/Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Pathway in Lung Fibroblasts.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Back to the future: targeting the extracellular matrix to treat systemic sclerosis.Nature reviews. Rheumatology · 2023Review
- ANT1 and the SASP: Beyond the Bioenergetic Void.American journal of respiratory cell and molecular biology · 2023Article
- Innovative Pre-Clinical Data Using Peptides to Intervene in the Evolution of Pulmonary Fibrosis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIdiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive fibrotic disease characterised by aberrant fibroblast/myofibroblast accumulation and excessive collagen matrix deposition in the alveolar areas of lungs. As the first approved IPF medication, pirfenidone (PFD) significantly decelerates lung function decline while its underlying anti-fibrotic mechanism remains elusive.
methodsWe performed transcriptomic and immunofluorescence analyses of primary human IPF tissues.
resultsWe showed that myocardin-related transcription factor (MRTF) signalling is activated in myofibroblasts accumulated in IPF lungs. Furthermore, we showed that PFD inhibits MRTF activation in primary human lung fibroblasts at clinically achievable concentrations (half-maximal inhibitory concentration 50-150 µM, maximal inhibition >90%, maximal concentration of PFD in patients <100 µM). Mechanistically, PFD appears to exert its inhibitory effects by promoting the interaction between MRTF and actin indirectly. Finally, PFD-treated IPF lungs exhibit significantly less MRTF activation in fibroblast foci areas than naïve IPF lungs.
conclusionsOur results suggest MRTF signalling as a direct target for PFD and implicate that some of the anti-fibrotic effects of PFD may be due to MRTF inhibition in lung fibroblasts.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.