Mechanosensitive phosphorylation of NFATC4 at S213/S217 drives fibroblast-to-myofibroblast transition and fibrosis
Safwen Kadri, Laura F Mattner, Zhen Zeng, Sai Rama Sridatta Prakki, Arun Kumar Verma, Umut Cetin, Christoph H Mayr, Meshal Ansari, Xin Wei, Sara Asgharpour, Anita A Wasik, Nikolaus Kneidinger, Mircea-Gabriel Stoleriu, Jürgen Behr, Julien Polleux, Ali Önder Yildirim, Laurens J De Sadeleer, Wim A Wuyt · 2026
Read Mechanosensitive phosphorylation of NFATC4 at S213/S217 drives fibroblast-to-myofibroblast transition and fibrosis by Safwen Kadri, Laura F Mattner, Zhen Zeng, Sai Rama Sridatta Prakki, Arun Kumar Verma, Umut Cetin, Christoph H Mayr, Meshal Ansari, Xin Wei, Sara Asgharpour, Anita A Wasik, Nikolaus Kneidinger, Mircea-Gabriel Stoleriu, Jürgen Behr, Julien Polleux, Ali Önder Yildirim, Laurens J De Sadeleer, Wim A Wuyt (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-13528934.txt.
Description
Safwen Kadri and co-authors find, in a 2026 study, a stiffness switch that turns lung support cells into scar-driving cells. Scar growth in the lung, fibrosis, stiffens tissue, and stiff tissue in turn spurs more scar. The team grew human lung fibroblasts on gels of set stiffness and read the full map of protein tags that switch cell acts. A clear line sat at 2 to 8 kilopascals. Past it, cells rebuilt their frame, shed scar proteins, and took the scar cell state.
One switch stood out: a gene control protein, NFATC4, tagged at two set spots. In scarred lung tissue its level rose with disease stage, in the same cells as scar marks. Fake tags that mimic the switch drove the change on soft gels with no other cue. Dead tags blocked it on stiff gels. The switch runs a 119-gene scar plan.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Safwen Kadri, Laura F Mattner, Zhen Zeng, Sai Rama Sridatta Prakki, Arun Kumar Verma, Umut Cetin, Christoph H Mayr, Meshal Ansari, Xin Wei, Sara Asgharpour, Anita A Wasik, Nikolaus Kneidinger, Mircea-Gabriel Stoleriu, Jürgen Behr, Julien Polleux, Ali Önder Yildirim, Laurens J De Sadeleer, Wim A Wuyt |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 74 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |