焦点粘着
瘢痕疙瘩
纤维化
细胞外基质
癌症研究
整合素
信号转导
PI3K/AKT/mTOR通路
生物
病理
细胞生物学
医学
受体
遗传学
作者
Yan Huang,Zheng‐Fu Han,Yuting Zhang,Yulong Tang,Xiaofeng Shi,Shuai Jiang,Weilin Pu,Jing Liu,Yan Ma,Juiming Lin,Juan Lin,Wei Wu,Yiyi Gong,Jiucun Wang,Qingmei Liu
摘要
Skin fibrosis is a common pathological manifestation in systemic sclerosis (SSc), keloid, and localized scleroderma (LS) characterized by fibroblast activation and excessive extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition. However, few effective drugs are available to treat skin fibrosis due to its unclear mechanisms. In our study, we reanalyzed skin RNA-sequencing data of Caucasian, African, and Hispanic SSc patients from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. We found that the focal adhesion pathway was up-regulated and Zyxin appeared to be the primary focal adhesion protein involved in skin fibrosis, and we further verified its expression in Chinese skin tissues of several fibrotic diseases, including SSc, keloid, and LS. Moreover, we found Zyxin inhibition could significantly alleviate skin fibrosis using Zyxin knock-down and knock-out mice, nude mouse model and skin explants of human keloid. Double immunofluorescence staining showed that Zyxin was highly expressed in fibroblasts. Further analysis revealed pro-fibrotic gene expression and collagen production increased in Zyxin over-expressed fibroblasts, and decreased in Zyxin interfered SSc fibroblasts. In addition, transcriptome and cell culture analyses revealed Zyxin inhibition could effectively attenuate skin fibrosis by regulating the FAK/PI3K/AKT and TGF-β signaling pathways via integrins. These results suggest Zyxin appears a potential new therapeutic target for skin fibrosis.
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