Review Healing scars: targeting pericytes to treat fibrosis

Fibrosis, with resultant loss of organ function, is the endpoint of many diseases. Despite this, no effective anti-fibrotic therapies exist. The myofibroblast is the key cell driving fibrosis but its origins remain con-troversial. A growing body of work provides strong evidence that the pericyte, a perivascular cell pre-sent throughout the microvasculature, is a major myofibroblast precursor in multiple tissues. This review summarizes the principle experimental and clinical evidence underpinning this conclusion and outlines strategies for targeting pericyte transdiffer-entiation during fibrogenesis. Successful targeting of pro-fibrogenic pericytes has the potential to halt or even reverse fibrosis and thus reduce the enormous worldwide healthcare burden that currently exists as a result of fibrotic disease