Artemisinin increases susceptibility to ferroptosis of fibroblast-like synoviocytes in rheumatoid arthritis
Maoyuan Li, Jiahao Wang, Yunyuan Yu, Liangliang Wang, Feng Lu, Shishuo Li, Jiale Wang, Yimin Liu, Guangrong Yin, Chao Xu, Yuji Wang · 2026
Read Artemisinin increases susceptibility to ferroptosis of fibroblast-like synoviocytes in rheumatoid arthritis by Maoyuan Li, Jiahao Wang, Yunyuan Yu, Liangliang Wang, Feng Lu, Shishuo Li, Jiale Wang, Yimin Liu, Guangrong Yin, Chao Xu, Yuji Wang (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/PMC13563903.txt.
Description
Maoyuan Li and ten colleagues test whether artemisinin, the antimalarial from wormwood, can push the overgrown lining of rheumatoid joints into iron-driven death. In rheumatoid arthritis, fibroblast-like synoviocytes multiply like a tumour and erode cartilage. Their 2026 study treated cells in culture and tracked the machinery of ferroptosis, a death by rusting membrane fats. Artemisinin lowered the guard proteins, GPX4 and SLC7A11, let lipid peroxides pile up, and made the cells more sensitive to ferroptosis triggers. Drugs that block this death cancelled the effect.
The pathway ran through p53, the tumour suppressor, which rose and squeezed the SLC7A11 supply line. In mice with collagen-induced arthritis, artemisinin eased damage by sensitising synovial tissue to the death, and ferroptosis blockers abolished the benefit. They propose repositioning a cheap, familiar drug to prune the lining, with the p53 axis as the lever to watch in dosing studies.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Maoyuan Li, Jiahao Wang, Yunyuan Yu, Liangliang Wang, Feng Lu, Shishuo Li, Jiale Wang, Yimin Liu, Guangrong Yin, Chao Xu, Yuji Wang |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 34680 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |