Ma Hsiao-Yen, Huang Zhiyu, Jeet Surinder, Emerson Claire, Bender Hannah, Ren Qihao, Ding Ning
Department of Discovery Immunology, Genentech, South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA.
Department of Translational Immunology, Genentech, South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA.
iScience. 2025 May 30;28(7):112778. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.112778. eCollection 2025 Jul 18.
Lung fibrosis, characterized by persistent deposition of extracellular matrix to alveolar areas, is a progressive fibrotic disease, which leads to lung function decline and mortality. At the cellular level, myofibroblast activation and proliferation are the central cellular events of lung fibrosis. Here, through a functional genetics screen, we identify cyclin-dependent kinase 13 (CDK13) as a regulator of pro-fibrotic gene expression. Further analyses show that CDK13 cooperates with CDK12 and CDK7 to synergistically induce myofibroblast activation, contractility, and proliferation. Pharmacological inhibition of CDK7/12/13 by a small molecule inhibitor, THZ1, induces myofibroblast reprogramming and reverses myofibroblast activation . Consistent with these findings, we show that THZ1 ameliorates lung fibrosis and blocks myofibroblast activation and proliferation in the bleomycin model. These results reveal CDK7/12/13 as the previously unrecognized determinants of myofibroblast activation and lung fibrosis and support their functional synergism as a tractable therapeutic target for patients with fibrotic lung diseases.
肺纤维化的特征是细胞外基质持续沉积于肺泡区域,是一种进行性纤维化疾病,可导致肺功能下降和死亡。在细胞水平上,肌成纤维细胞的激活和增殖是肺纤维化的核心细胞事件。在此,通过功能遗传学筛选,我们确定细胞周期蛋白依赖性激酶13(CDK13)是促纤维化基因表达的调节因子。进一步分析表明,CDK13与CDK12和CDK7协同诱导肌成纤维细胞的激活、收缩性和增殖。小分子抑制剂THZ1对CDK7/12/13的药理抑制作用可诱导肌成纤维细胞重编程并逆转肌成纤维细胞的激活。与这些发现一致,我们表明THZ1可改善博来霉素模型中的肺纤维化,并阻断肌成纤维细胞的激活和增殖。这些结果揭示了CDK7/12/13是先前未被认识的肌成纤维细胞激活和肺纤维化的决定因素,并支持它们的功能协同作用作为纤维化肺病患者易于处理的治疗靶点。