{"doi":"10.3390/biom12101447","title":"Andrographolide Inhibits Corneal Fibroblast to Myofibroblast Differentiation In Vitro","abstract":"Corneal opacification due to fibrosis is a leading cause of blindness worldwide. Fibrosis occurs from many causes including trauma, photorefractive surgery, microbial keratitis (infection of the cornea), and chemical burns, yet there is a paucity of therapeutics to prevent or treat corneal fibrosis. This study aimed to determine if andrographolide, a labdane diterpenoid found in Andrographis paniculate, has anti-fibrotic properties. Furthermore, we evaluated if andrographolide could prevent the differentiation of fibroblasts to myofibroblasts in vitro, given that the transforming growth factor beta-1(TGF-β1) stimulated persistence of myofibroblasts in the cornea is a primary component of fibrosis. We demonstrated that andrographolide inhibited the upregulation of alpha smooth muscle actin (αSMA) mRNA and protein in rabbit corneal fibroblasts (RCFs), thus, demonstrating a reduction in the transdifferentiation of myofibroblasts. Immunofluorescent staining of TGF-β1-stimulated RCFs confirmed a dose-dependent decrease in αSMA expression when treated with andrographolide. Additionally, andrographolide was well tolerated in vivo and had no impact on corneal epithelialization in a rat debridement model. These data support future studies investigating the use of andrographolide as an anti-fibrotic in corneal wound healing.","journal":"Biomolecules","year":2022,"id":279388,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9562,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":953482,"name":"Melinda Quan","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":952946,"name":"Theint Aung","orcid":"0000-0003-0805-9114","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":952947,"name":"Jennifer Kang","orcid":"0000-0002-6969-3680","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":246470,"name":"Sara M. Thomasy","orcid":"0000-0001-5617-9677","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":692180,"name":"Brian C. Leonard","orcid":"0000-0003-2080-8480","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":375007,"name":"Vanessa Rozo","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":42,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:28:55.546964Z","pmid":"36291655","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}