The triggers and causes of a severe scarring disease of the lungs — idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF — remain unclear.
Now research published in Science Translational Medicine shows how cadmium and carbon black can trigger lung macrophages to produce a modified protein, citrullinated vimentin, or cit‑vim, which leads to lung fibrosis. Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and three other American universities also describe a sequence of mechanistic steps in lung macrophages and lung fibroblasts that leads to the lung scarring.
One of the enzymes involved in these steps — peptidylarginine deiminase 2, or PAD2 — may be a promising target to attenuate cadmium/carbon black-induced fibrosis, they say. The researchers also report a potential disease model for lung fibrosis and IPF — the use of cadmium chloride to induce interstitial fibrosis in mice.
