PLoS ONE (Jan 2024)

Remdesivir alleviates skin fibrosis by suppressing TGF-β1 signaling pathway.

  • Jianwei Zhang,
  • Xiujun Zhang,
  • Xiaowei Guo,
  • Wenqi Li,
  • Tiantian Zhang,
  • Dan Chai,
  • Yuming Liu,
  • Li Chen,
  • Xiaoyu Ai,
  • Tianyuan Zhou,
  • Wenguo Wei,
  • Xiaoting Gu,
  • Xiaohe Li,
  • Honggang Zhou

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0305927
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 19, no. 7
p. e0305927

Abstract

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Fibrotic skin diseases, such as keloids, are pathological results of aberrant tissue healing and are characterized by overgrowth of dermal fibroblasts. Remdesivir (RD), an antiviral drug, has been reported to have pharmacological activities in a wide range of fibrotic diseases. However, whether RD function on skin fibrosis remains unclear. Therefore, in our study, we explored the potential effect and mechanisms of RD on skin fibrosis both in vivo and in vitro. As expected, the results demonstrated that RD alleviated BLM-induced skin fibrosis and attenuates the gross weight of keloid tissues in vivo. Further studies suggested that RD suppressed fibroblast activation and autophagy both in vivo and in vitro. In addition, mechanistic research showed that RD attenuated fibroblasts activation by the TGF-β1/Smad signaling pathway and inhibited fibroblasts autophagy by the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway. In summary, our results demonstrate therapeutic potential of RD for skin fibrosis in the future.