IRF7 links HK1-dependent histone lactylation to fibroblast activation and cardiac fibrosis
Ming Kong, Chenghao Zhu, Yujia Xue, Wenxuan Hong, Guoqing Zhang, Dingsheng Jiang, Yong Xu, Junli Guo · 2026
Read IRF7 links HK1-dependent histone lactylation to fibroblast activation and cardiac fibrosis by Ming Kong, Chenghao Zhu, Yujia Xue, Wenxuan Hong, Guoqing Zhang, Dingsheng Jiang, Yong Xu, Junli Guo (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13365489.txt.
Description
Ming Kong and co-authors trace a chain from an immune factor to heart scarring in a 2026 study. After injury, quiet heart fibroblasts switch into scar-building cells, stiffening the organ. What flips that switch is only partly known.
The factor IRF7 acts as a brake: silencing it sped the switch, boosting it slowed the switch, and deleting it in mice worsened scarring and heart function. The team found the brake works through a metabolic gene, HK1. Blocking that gene protected mice from bad remodeling. The gene feeds the cell's lactate pool, which tags a histone protein and turns on scar genes. Human heart samples confirmed the same axis. The authors nominate the pair as a drug target for heart failure.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Ming Kong, Chenghao Zhu, Yujia Xue, Wenxuan Hong, Guoqing Zhang, Dingsheng Jiang, Yong Xu, Junli Guo |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 73 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |