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Reply to: "NOX-4 is expressed in thickened pulmonary arteries in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis"

Nature Medicine volume 17, pages 32–33 (2011)Cite this article

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Hecker, Crowe and Thannickal reply:

In their correspondence, Pache et al.1 raise the intriguing idea that NOX-4 is expressed in the remodeled vascular structures resulting from chronic hypoxia in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Their immunohistochemical analyses on lung tissue sections from control subjects and subjects with IPF show α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA)-expressing cells in pulmonary vasculature1. In their morphometric analysis of pulmonary arteries, these investigators report a statistically significant increase in the thickness of the vessel walls in IPF1, thus supporting the concept of vascular remodeling in IPF, which may or may not be secondary to chronic hypoxia2. Although the authors do not provide NOX-4 staining data, they refer to our immunohistochemical studies of IPF tissue sections published earlier in Nature Medicine3 as evidence that the NADPH oxidase NOX-4 is expressed in remodeled blood vessels of the IPF lung, and they suggest that “NOX-4 might also be involved in the pathophysiology of lung artery hypertrophy in human IPF.”1.

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Figure 1: NOX4 expression in the remodeled vascular and alveolar-interstitial regions of the human IPF lung.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Pulmonary, Department of Medicine, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA

    Louise Hecker & Victor J Thannickal

  2. Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA

    David R Crowe

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  1. Louise Hecker
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  2. David R Crowe
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  3. Victor J Thannickal
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Correspondence to Victor J Thannickal.

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Hecker, L., Crowe, D. & Thannickal, V. Reply to: "NOX-4 is expressed in thickened pulmonary arteries in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis". Nat Med 17, 32–33 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0111-32

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