Gene expression analysis reveals matrilysin as a key regulator of pulmonary fibrosis in mice and humans.

ABSTRACT: Pulmonary fibrosis is a progressive and largely untreatable group of disorders that affects up to 100,000 people on any given day in the United States. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms that lead to end-stage human pulmonary fibrosis we analyzed samples from patients with histologically proven pulmonary fibrosis (usual interstitial pneumonia) by using oligonucleotide microarrays. Gene expression patterns clearly distinguished normal from fibrotic lungs. Many of the genes that were significantly increased in fibrotic lungs encoded proteins associated with extracellular matrix formation and degradation and proteins expressed in smooth muscle. Using a combined set of scoring systems we determined that matrilysin (matrix metalloproteinase 7), a metalloprotease not previously associated wit

SUBMITTER: Zuo F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC122942 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature