ArticleRespiratory research2023
Elevated expression of macrophage MERTK exhibits profibrotic effects and results in defective regulation of efferocytosis function in pulmonary fibrosis.
Article in Respiratory research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trends and hotspots in pulmonary fibrosis biomarker research: a bibliometric analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Tissue-Resident Macrophage in Inflammation and Cancer.MedComm · 2026Review
- Neutrophil depletion exacerbatesFood and waterborne parasitology · 2026Article
- Macrophage-to-Myofibroblast Transdifferentiation Contributes to Pulmonary Fibrosis via the MERTK-SPP1-SRC-TKS5 Signaling Axis.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Article
- Review
- Article
- Next-Generation In Vitro Pulmonary Platforms for Respiratory Disease Modelling and Therapeutic Development: Current Advances and Future Prospects.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Review
- Erythroid Atypical Chemokine Receptor 1 Deficiency Aggravates Immune-Mediated Kidney Disease.Journal of the American Society of Nephrology : JASN · 2026Article
- Intrinsic neutrophil dysregulation in programmed cell death promotes neutrophilic inflammation in cystic fibrosis.Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie · 2026Article
- Macrophages Are Critical Inducers of Bleomycin-Induced Fibrosis in a Systemic Scleroderma Model.The American journal of pathology · 2026Article
- Decoding macrophage heterogeneity in the pulmonary fibrosis lung cancer transition.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Baricitinib alleviates interstitial lung disease in CIA mice by inhibiting macrophage polarization and increase exosomal miR-126a-3p with anti-fibrotic activityFrontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- Engineering Efferocytosis for Bone Regeneration.Macromolecular bioscience · 2025Review
- Heterogeneity of Lung Phagocytes and Clearance of Apoptotic Cells in Lung Injury and Repair.Seminars in respiratory and critical care medicine · 2025Review
- Molecular mechanisms of efferocytosis imbalance in the idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis microenvironment: from gene screening to dynamic regulation analysis.Biology direct · 2025Article
- Clinical significance of TAM receptor in the minor salivary glands of patients with Sjögren's disease.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- How macrophage heterogeneity affects tuberculosis disease and therapy.Nature reviews. Immunology · 2025Review
- Recent advances in TAM mechanisms in lung diseases.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Review
- Efferocytosis in Homeostasis.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Increased apoptosis of alveolar epithelial cells is a prominent feature of pulmonary fibrosis. Macrophage efferocytosis, phagocytosis of apoptotic cells by macrophages, is crucial for maintaining tissue homeostasis. Expression of Mer tyrosine kinase (MERTK, an important recognition receptor in efferocytosis) in macrophages is thought to be associated with fibrosis. However, how macrophage MERTK affects pulmonary fibrosis and whether it depends on efferocytosis are not yet clear. Here, we found elevated MERTK expression in lung macrophages from IPF patients and mice with bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis. In vitro experiments showed that macrophages overexpressing MERTK exhibit profibrotic effects and that macrophage efferocytosis abrogates the profibrotic effect of MERTK by downregulating MERTK, forming a negative regulatory loop. In pulmonary fibrosis, this negative regulation is defective, and MERTK mainly exhibits profibrotic effects. Our study reveals a previously unsuspected profibrotic effect of elevated macrophage MERTK in pulmonary fibrosis and defective regulation of efferocytosis function as a result of that elevation, suggesting that targeting MERTK in macrophages may help to attenuate pulmonary fibrosis.
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Registered trials
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.