[Tissue transglutaminase and renal fibrosis].

Tissue transglutaminase (tTG), an enzyme which can catalyze the posttranslational modification of proteins, is widely distributed and plays an important role in both physiological and pathological processes. More recently, tissue transglutaminase has been believed to participate in tissue fibrosis. Cross-linked extracellular matrix proteins by tissue transglutaminase are stable and highly resistant to proteolytic degradation, thus lead to accumulation of the ECM proteins in tissue fibrosis. This review summarizes the important features of this multifunctional enzyme and particularly introduces the correlation between tTG and renal fibrosis.