Cardiac fibroblasts: answering the call

Abstract

Cardiac fibroblasts play a pivotal role in maintaining heart homeostasis by depositing extracellular matrix (ECM) to provide structural support for the myocardium, vasculature, and neuronal network and by contributing to essential physiological processes. In response to injury such as myocardial infarction or pressure overload, fibroblasts become activated, leading to increased ECM production that can ultimately drive left ventricular remodeling and progress to heart failure. Recently, the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology issued a call for papers on cardiac fibroblasts that yielded articles with topics spanning fibroblast physiology, technical considerations, signaling pathways, and interactions with other cell types. This mini-review summarizes those articles and places the new findings in the context of what is currently known for cardiac fibroblasts and what future directions remain.

Keywords: fibrosis; ischemia; myocardium; physiology; pressure overload.

Figure 1.

Summary of the contributions of this call to our understanding of the role of the cardiac fibroblast, highlighting Slit homolog 3 (SLIT3) protein, the co-chaperone Bcl2-associated athanogene 3 (BAG3), and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) actions. The image was created with a licensed version of BioRender.com.