title: Yin and Yang revisited: CCN3 as an anti-fibrotic therapeutic?
abstract: Fibrotic diseases are a significant cause of mortality. It is being increasingly appreciated that the cellular microenvironment plays a key role in promoting pathological fibrosis. A previous Bits and Bytes described an elegant series of experiments published by Bruce Riser and colleagues (Am J Pathol. 2009: 174:1725-34) that showed that CCN3 (nov) antagonizes the fibrogenic effects of CCN2.and hence could represent a novel anti-fibrotic therapy. They have continued their excellent work and have recently used the ob/ob mouse as a model of obesity and diabetic nephropathy to show that CCN3 could block the induction of profibrotic gene expression, fibrosis and loss of kidney function (Am J Pathol. 2014;184:2908-21). Also, reversal of fibrosis was observed. Thus this paper provides strong evidence that CCN3 may be used as a novel therapy to treat diabetes caused by obesity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dentistry and Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, N6A 5C1, Canada, andrew.leask@schulich.uwo.ca.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Leask