Porcupine's dilemma in kidney fibrosis.

Abstract

Aberrant activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling, an activity that is critically modulated by porcupine, a membrane-bound O-acyltransferase, is profibrotic. Previously, the Crowley laboratory demonstrated that oral administration of porcupine inhibitor attenuated experimental mouse kidney fibrosis. Now Lu et al., from that laboratory, using conditional knockout lineages, have shown that porcupine in the renal tubule accelerated fibrosis and Wnt generation, whereas myeloid cell porcupine counteracted the effect. Thus, porcupine has been attracting both positive and negative attention.