Sustained inflammation upon chronic liver injury induces the development of liver fibrosis in mice and men. Experimental models of liver fibrosis highlight the importance of hepatic macrophages, so-called Kupf...
Fibrocytes, a group of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal progenitor cells, were first described in 1994 as fibroblast-like, peripheral blood cells that migrate to regions of tissue injury. These cells are unique...
Liver fibrosis, and its end stage cirrhosis are a major cause of morbidity and mortality and therapeutic options are limited. However, the traditional view of liver disease as an irreversible process is obsole...
Authors: Antonella Pellicoro, Prakash Ramachandran and John P Iredale
Under physiological conditions, intracellular and tissue levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) are carefully controlled and employed as fine modulators of signal transduction, gene expression and cell functi...
CTGF is a secreted matricellular protein with very complex biology. It has been shown to modulate many signaling pathways leading to cell adhesion and migration, angiogenesis, myofibroblast activation, and ext...
Authors: Kenneth E Lipson, Carol Wong, Yuchin Teng and Suzanne Spong
Fibrosis is fundamental to the pathogenesis of many chronic lung diseases, including some lung infections, airway diseases such as bronchiectasis and asthma, and most of the diffuse parenchymal lung diseases. ...
Fibrosis in systemic sclerosis (SSc), a complex polygenic disease associated with autoimmunity and proliferative/obliterative vasculopathy, shares pathobiologic features in common with other fibrosing illnesse...
Authors: Swati Bhattacharyya, Jun Wei, Warren G Tourtellotte, Monique Hinchcliff, Cara G Gottardi and John Varga
Primary Myelofibrosis (PMF) is a chronic myeloproliferative neoplasm characterized by a clonal myeloproliferation and a myelofibrosis. The concomitant presence of neoangiogenesis and osteosclerosis suggests a ...
Circumferential endoscopic submucosal dissection (CESD) of the esophagus would allow for both the eradication of Barrett’s esophagus and its related complications, such as advanced neoplasia. However, such pro...
Authors: Maximilien Barret, Frédéric Batteux, Frédéric Beuvon, Luigi Mangialavori, Ariane Chryssostalis, Carlos Pratico, Stanislas Chaussade and Frédéric Prat
Heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) is a multidimensional protein which acts as a protein chaperone and an antioxidant and plays a role in the inhibition of apoptosis and actin cytoskeletal remodeling. In each of th...
Authors: Aparna Vidyasagar, Nancy A Wilson and Arjang Djamali
Transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) is a potent regulator of cell growth and differentiation. TGF-β1 has been shown to be a key player in tissue remodeling processes in a number of disease states by inducing e...
Authors: Oskar Hallgren, Johan Malmström, Lars Malmström, Annika Andersson-Sjöland, Marie Wildt, Ellen Tufvesson, Peter Juhasz, György Marko-Varga and Gunilla Westergren-Thorsson
Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)γ may be a key regulator of connective tissue deposition and remodeling in vivo. PPARγ expression is reduced in dermal fibroblasts isolated from fibrotic areas of ...
Authors: Wei Sha, Katherine Thompson, Jennifer South, Murray Baron and Andrew Leask
In the last decade there have been multiple studies concerning the contribution of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) to new vessel formation in different physiological and pathological settings. The process ...
The two discoidin domain receptors (DDRs), DDR1 and DDR2 are receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) with the unique ability among RTKs to respond to collagen. We have previously shown that collagen I induces DDR1 an...
CCL18, a chemokine with no known receptor, has been implicated in several fibrotic pulmonary diseases associated with T-lymphocyte infiltration. It has been hypothesized that CCL18 may act through CCR6. Gene d...
Genomics and proteomics have become increasingly important in biomedical science in the past decade, as they provide an opportunity for hypothesis-free experiments that can yield major insights not previously ...
Authors: Rebekka A Hannivoort, Virginia Hernandez-Gea and Scott L Friedman
The 16th International Symposium on Cells of the Hepatic Sinusoid (ISCHS) took place in Florence, Italy on 22-24 September 2011. This symposium is a multidisciplinary meeting where new and important findings o...
Chronic pancreatitis is defined as a continuous or recurrent inflammatory disease of the pancreas characterized by progressive and irreversible morphological changes. It typically causes pain and permanent imp...
Authors: Alexander A Aghdassi, Julia Mayerle, Sandra Christochowitz, Frank U Weiss, Matthias Sendler and Markus M Lerch
Blockade of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is well recognized as an essential therapy in hypertensive, heart, and kidney diseases. There are several classes of drugs that block the RAS; these drugs are kno...
Caveolin 1 (Cav-1) is the primary structural component of cell membrane invaginations called 'caveolae'. Expression of Cav-1 is implicated in the pathogenesis of pulmonary fibrosis. Genetic polymorphisms in the C...
Authors: Elisabeth A Kastelijn, Coline HM van Moorsel, Karin M Kazemier, Suzan M Roothaan, Henk JT Ruven, Johanna M Kwakkel-van Erp, Ed A van de Graaf, Pieter Zanen, Diana A van Kessel and Jan C Grutters
Fibrocytes are a population of circulating bone-marrow-derived cells that express surface markers for leukocytes and mesenchymal cells, and are capable of differentiating into myofibroblasts. They have been ob...
Authors: Jason E Ekert, Lynne A Murray, Anuk M Das, Hai Sheng, Jill Giles-Komar and Michael A Rycyzyn
Collagen deposition and an altered matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) expression profile are hallmarks of fibrosis. Type IV collagen is the most abundant structural basement membrane component of tissue, which inc...
Authors: Sanne S Veidal, Morten A Karsdal, Arkadiusz Nawrocki, Martin R Larsen, Yueqin Dai, Qinlong Zheng, Per Hägglund, Ben Vainer, Helene Skjøt-Arkil and Diana J Leeming
Fibronectin (FN) is a ubiquitous extracellular matrix (ECM) glycoprotein that plays vital roles during tissue repair. The plasma form of FN circulates in the blood, and upon tissue injury, is incorporated into...
There is currently much interest in adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and their ability to differentiate into other cell types, and to partake in the anatomy and physiology of remote organs. It is now clear ...
Hepatic fibrosis is characterized by intense tissue remodeling, mainly driven by matrix metalloproteinases. We previously identified CO3-610, a type III collagen neoepitope generated by matrix metalloproteinas...
Authors: Toni Segovia-Silvestre, Vedrana Reichenbach, Guillermo Fernández-Varo, Efstathios Vassiliadis, Natasha Barascuk, Manuel Morales-Ruiz, Morten A Karsdal and Wladimiro Jiménez
We have shown previously that murine gammaherpesvirus 68 (γHV68) infection exacerbates established pulmonary fibrosis. Because Toll-like receptor (TLR)-9 may be important in controlling the immune response to ...
Authors: Tracy R Luckhardt, Stephanie M Coomes, Glenda Trujillo, Joshua S Stoolman, Kevin M Vannella, Urvashi Bhan, Carol A Wilke, Thomas A Moore, Galen B Toews, Cory Hogaboam and Bethany B Moore
Better survival in combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema than in lone pulmonary fibrosis: bias or reality? A response to Centrilobular emphysema combined with pulmonary fibrosis results in improved surviva...
Authors: Vincent Cottin, Jean-François Cordier and Athol U Wells
Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in scleroderma (systemic sclerosis, or SSc). Fibrocytes are a monocyte-derived cell population implicated in the pathogenesis of fibr...
Authors: Elena Tourkina, Michael Bonner, James Oates, Ann Hofbauer, Mathieu Richard, Sergei Znoyko, Richard P Visconti, Jing Zhang, Corey M Hatfield, Richard M Silver and Stanley Hoffman
Dupuytren's disease is a fibroproliferative disorder of the palmar fascia. The treatment used to date has mostly been surgery, but there is a high recurrence rate. Transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) has been...
Authors: Carola Krause, Peter Kloen and Peter ten Dijke
Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease characterised by vascular dysfunction and damage, excess collagen deposition and subsequent organ manifestations. Vasculopathy is an early ...
Authors: Luke Morgan-Rowe, Joanna Nikitorowicz, Xu Shiwen, Andrew Leask, Janice Tsui, David Abraham and Richard Stratton
Collagen-containing leukocytes (CD45+Col-I+) accumulate in diseased and fibrotic tissues. However, the precise identity of these cells and whether injury is required for their recruitment remain unknown. Using a ...
Authors: Xueyan Peng, Susan K Mathai, Lynne A Murray, Thomas Russell, Ronald Reilkoff, Qingsheng Chen, Mridu Gulati, Jack A Elias, Richard Bucala, Ye Gan and Erica L Herzog
Over the past two decades, the concept of the epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) has been imported from embryology and oncology to fibrosis, particularly in the kidney. This interest in EMT in the cont...
Pulmonary sarcoidosis involves an intense leukocyte infiltration of the lung with the formation of non-necrotizing granulomas. CC chemokines (chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 2 (CCL2)-CCL5) are chemoattractants of...
Authors: Vyacheslav Palchevskiy, Nastran Hashemi, Stephen S Weigt, Ying Ying Xue, Ariss Derhovanessian, Michael P Keane, Robert M Strieter, Michael C Fishbein, Jane C Deng, Joseph P Lynch III, Robert Elashoff and John A Belperio
The mechanism underlying the ability of fibroblasts to contract a collagen gel matrix is largely unknown. Fibroblasts from scarred (lesional) areas of patients with the fibrotic disease scleroderma show enhanc...
Authors: Yunliang Chen, Andrew Leask, David J Abraham, Laura Kennedy, Xu Shi-wen, Christopher P Denton, Carol M Black, Liaquat S Verjee and Mark Eastwood
Scleroderma (systemic sclerosis; SSc) is a clinically heterogeneous and often lethal acquired disorder of the connective tissue that is characterized by vascular, immune/inflammatory and fibrotic manifestation...
Authors: Silvia Smaldone, Jacopo Olivieri, Gabriele Luca Gusella, Gianluca Moroncini, Armando Gabrielli and Francesco Ramirez
The natural response to injury is dynamic and normally consists of complex temporal and spatial cellular changes in gene expression, which, when acting in synchrony, result in patent tissue repair and, in some...
Authors: Ritsuko Sawada, Carrie Y Peterson, Ana Maria Gonzalez, Bruce M Potenza, Barbara Mueller, Raul Coimbra, Brian P Eliceiri and Andrew Baird
We hypothesized that, in patients with pulmonary fibrosis combined with emphysema, clinical characteristics and outcomes may differ from patients with pulmonary fibrosis without emphysema. We identified 102 pa...
Authors: Nevins W Todd, Jean Jeudy, Sachin Lavania, Teri J Franks, Jeffrey R Galvin, Janaki Deepak, Edward J Britt and Sergei P Atamas
The wounding response relies on tightly regulated crosstalk between recruited fibroblasts and the collagenous extracellular matrix (ECM). Discoidin domain receptor 2 (DDR2) is a tyrosine kinase receptor for fi...
Authors: Elvira Olaso, Hsin-Chieh Lin, Li-Hsien Wang and Scott L Friedman
Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) is widely thought to promote the development of fibrosis in collaboration with transforming growth factor (TGF)-β; however, most of the evidence for its involvement comes...
Authors: Qingjian Wang, William Usinger, Blake Nichols, Julia Gray, Leon Xu, Todd W Seeley, Mitch Brenner, Guangjie Guo, Weihua Zhang, Noelynn Oliver, Al Lin and David Yeowell
Hyaluronidases (HYALs) comprise a group of enzymes that degrade hyaluronic acid (HA). In this report, we reveal that a single intranasal inoculation of HYAL induces an increase in mononuclear cells within the ...
Authors: Claudia S Bitencourt, Priscilla AT Pereira, Simone G Ramos, Suely V Sampaio, Eliane C Arantes, David M Aronoff and Lúcia H Faccioli
Fibrosis is the end result of a complex series of events that follow tissue injury and inflammation. Pathophysiologic fibrosis results in permanent scar formation, and can impair organ function. Fibrocytes are...
Authors: Ellen C Keeley, Borna Mehrad and Robert M Strieter
Fibrolytic and profibrotic activities of the matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs)-2 and -9 play a central role in liver fibrosis. Since binding to the extracellular matrix influences the activity of both gelatinas...
Authors: Martin Ruehl, Marion Muche, Christian Freise, Ulrike Erben, Ulf Neumann, Detlef Schuppan, Yury Popov, Walburga Dieterich, Martin Zeitz, Richard W Farndale and Rajan Somasundaram
During scleroderma (SSc) pathogenesis, fibroblasts acquire an activated phenotype characterized by enhanced production of extracellular matrix (ECM) and constitutive activation of several major signaling pathw...
Authors: Glady H Samuel, Andreea M Bujor, Sashidhar S Nakerakanti, Faye N Hant and Maria Trojanowska
The extracellular matrix (ECM) plays a key role in tissue formation, homeostasis and repair, mutations in ECM components have catastrophic consequences for organ function and therefore, for the fitness and sur...
Authors: Jacopo Olivieri, Silvia Smaldone and Francesco Ramirez
In healing wounds, some monocytes enter the wound and differentiate into fibroblast-like cells called fibrocytes. Since Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are present on monocytes, and pathogens that can infect a woun...
Authors: Anu S Maharjan, Darrell Pilling and Richard H Gomer
The first meeting dedicated to intestinal fibrosis, entitled The First International Summit on Fibrosis in Intestinal Inflammation: Mechanisms and Biological Therapies, was held in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, on 28-29 ...
Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a family of transmembrane pattern recognition receptors (PRR) that play a key role in innate and adaptive immunity by recognizing structural components unique to bacteria, fungi ...
Toll-like receptors (TLRs), a key component of innate immunity, have recently been implicated in the pathogenesis of interstitial lung diseases (ILDs). As the involvement of TLRs has not yet been fully elucida...
Authors: Giorgos A Margaritopoulos, Katerina M Antoniou, Kostas Karagiannis, Katerina D Samara, Ismini Lasithiotaki, Evi Vassalou, Rena Lymbouridou, Helen Koutala and Nikos M Siafakas
Integrins are important cellular receptors for collagens. Within the glomerulus, podocytes regulate the integrity of the glomerular basement membrane (GBM) by sensing the presence of collagen and regulating co...
Authors: Rainer Girgert, Maria Martin, Jenny Kruegel, Nicolai Miosge, Johanna Temme, Beate Eckes, Gerhard-Anton Müller and Oliver Gross
