INTRODUCTION Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a complex and not fully understood autoimmune disease associated with fibrosis of multiple organs. The main effector cells, the myofibroblasts, are collagen-producing cells derived from the activation of resting fibroblasts. This process is regulated by a complex repertoire of profibrotic cytokines, and among them transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) ...

Chemotactic movement of myofibroblasts is recognized as a common means for their sequestration to the site of tissue injury. Following myocardial infarction (MI), recruitment of cardiac myofibroblasts to the infarct scar is a critical step in wound healing. Contractile myofibroblasts express embryonic smooth muscle myosin, α-smooth muscle actin, as well as collagens I and III. We examined the e...

BACKGROUND We previously demonstrated oxymatrine, an alkaloid from the Chinese medicine radix Sophorae flavescentis, ameliorates hemodynamic disturbances and cardiac fibrosis; however, the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Here, we investigated the effect and mechanism of action of oxymatrine on aldosterone-induced cardiac fibroblast to myofibroblast differentiation in vitro. METHODS Cardiac...

BACKGROUND Fibroblast to myofibroblast transition is believed to contribute to airway remodelling in lung diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This study examines the role of aclidinium, a new long-acting muscarinic antagonist, on human fibroblast to myofibroblast transition. METHODS Human bronchial fibroblasts were stimulated with carbachol (10(-8) to 10(-5) M) ...

153 Effect of Simvastatin on Transforming Growth Factor BETA-1Induced Myofibroblast Differentiation and Collagen Production in Nasal Polyp-Derived Fibroblasts Il-Ho Park, MD, and Heung-man Lee, MD, PhD. Department of otorhinolaryngology-head and neck surgery, Korea university college of medicine, Seoul, South Korea. Background: Statins are the most commonly prescribed drugs for the treatment of...

INTRODUCTION Obliterative vasculopathy and fibrosis are hallmarks of systemic sclerosis (SSc), a severe systemic autoimmune disease. Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) from SSc patients may harbor disease-specific abnormalities. We hypothesized disturbed vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) differentiation with increased propensity towards myofibroblast differentiation in respon...

An increasing number of comprehensive genetic fate mapping studies have demonstrated that pericytes are the main progenitors renal scar-forming myofibroblasts, and contribute in poor repair acute kidney injury progression to chronic disease. Following unilateral ureteral obstruction, injured epithelial cells primarily secreted TGF-β1, which could then trigger pericyte-myofibroblast transition (...