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Review
. 2015 Jun 9:6:113.
doi: 10.3389/fphar.2015.00113. eCollection 2015.

Mesothelial cells in tissue repair and fibrosis

Steven E Mutsaers  1 , Kimberly Birnie  2 , Sally Lansley  2 , Sarah E Herrick  3 , Chuan-Bian Lim  1 , Cecilia M Prêle  1
Affiliations
Review

Mesothelial cells in tissue repair and fibrosis

Steven E Mutsaers et al. Front Pharmacol. .

Abstract

Mesothelial cells are fundamental to the maintenance of serosal integrity and homeostasis and play a critical role in normal serosal repair following injury. However, when normal repair mechanisms breakdown, mesothelial cells take on a profibrotic role, secreting inflammatory, and profibrotic mediators, differentiating and migrating into the injured tissues where they contribute to fibrogenesis. The development of new molecular and cell tracking techniques has made it possible to examine the origin of fibrotic cells within damaged tissues and to elucidate the roles they play in inflammation and fibrosis. In addition to secreting proinflammatory mediators and contributing to both coagulation and fibrinolysis, mesothelial cells undergo mesothelial-to-mesenchymal transition, a process analogous to epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, and become fibrogenic cells. Fibrogenic mesothelial cells have now been identified in tissues where they have not previously been thought to occur, such as within the parenchyma of the fibrotic lung. These findings show a direct role for mesothelial cells in fibrogenesis and open therapeutic strategies to prevent or reverse the fibrotic process.

Keywords: coagulation and fibrinolysis; extracellular matrix; idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis; inflammation; mesothelial-to-mesenchymal transition; post-operative adhesion; tissue repair and fibrosis.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Mechanisms of mesothelial cell-induced fibrosis. (A) Normal serosa. Mesothelial cells rest on a basement membrane with submesothelial stromal cells embedded within ECM. (B) Inflamed serosa. Activated mesothelial cells secrete inflammatory mediators and growth factors into the serosal fluid and submesothelial compartment. Chemokines and other inflammatory mediators produced by the mesothelial cells attract inflammatory and immune cells to the site of injury and activate submesothelial stromal cells. Mediators produced by activated mesothelial cells and submesothelial stromal cells induce mesothelial cells to become more cuboidal, break cell–cell junctions, separate and expose underlying basement membrane and ECM. (C) MMT and fibrosis. Mesothelial cells secrete TF to induce coagulation and deposition of a fibrin matrix. Stromal and inflammatory cells secrete MMT-promoting factors that induce conversion of mesothelial cells into (myo)fibroblasts which migrate into the surrounding ECM and together with resident stromal cells form fibrotic foci.
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