Sébastien Lepreux, CHU Bordeaux, Hôpital Pellegrin, Service d’Anatomie Pathologique, F-33076 Bordeaux, France
Christelle Guyot, Chantal Combe, Charles Balabaud, Paulette Bioulac-Sage, U889 and Université Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2, F-33076 Bordeaux, France
Christelle Guyot, Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Department of Medicine, University Hospital Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland
Fabrice Billet, Alexis Desmoulière, Facultés de Médecine et de Pharmacie, Université de Limoges, EA 6309, F-87025 Limoges, France
Author contributions: Lepreux S and Guyot C contributed equally to this work; Lepreux S, Guyot C and Combe C performed the research; Billet F, Balabaud C and Bioulac-Sage P contributed to new reagents/analytic tools and analyzed the data; Lepreux S, Guyot C and Desmoulière A designed the research and wrote the paper.
Supported by In part a grant from the French Ministry of Research
Correspondence to: Alexis Desmoulière, PhD, Faculté de Pharmacie, Université de Limoges, 2 rue du Docteur Marcland, EA 6309, F-87025 Limoges, France. alexis.desmouliere@unilim.fr
Telephone: +33-555-435873 Fax: +33-555-435912
Received: May 3, 2013 Revised: June 18, 2013 Accepted: July 4, 2013 Published online: December 28, 2013 Processing time: 256 Days and 19 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: In fibrotic conditions, it has been suggested that smooth muscle cells can acquire a myofibroblastic phenotype. To explore this hypothesis, we studied the expression of smoothelin, a specific marker of end-stage differentiation of smooth muscle cells, in cutaneous and hepatic fibrotic conditions, using immunohistochemistry and confocal microscopy. We showed that during advanced liver fibrosis, a subpopulation of α-smooth muscle actin-expressing myofibroblasts also express smoothelin and thus may be derived from vascular smooth muscle cells. This finding, which illustrates the different potential cellular origins of myofibroblasts involved in liver fibrogenesis, may represent an interesting tool to distinguish advanced stages of cirrhosis.
