Current evidence on the role of fibroblasts in large-vessel vasculitides: From pathogenesis to therapeutics.

Large-vessel vasculitides (LVV) comprise a group of chronic inflammatory diseases of the aorta and its major branches. The most common forms of LVV are giant cell arteritis (GCA) and Takayasu arteritis (TAK). Both GCA and TAK are characterized by granulomatous inflammation of the vessel wall accompanied by a maladaptive immune and vascular response that promotes vascular damage and remodeling. The inflammatory process in LVV starts in the adventitia where fibroblasts constitute the dominant cell population. Fibroblasts are traditionally recognized for synthesizing and renewing the extracellular matrix thereby being major players in maintenance of normal tissue architecture and in tissue repair. More recently, fibroblasts have emerged as a highly plastic cell population exerting various functions, including the regulation of local immune processes and organization of immune cells at the site of inflammation through production of cytokines, chemokines and growth factors as well as cell-cell interaction. In this review, we summarize and discuss the current knowledge on fibroblasts in LVV. Furthermore, we identify key questions that need to be addressed to fully understand the role of fibroblasts in the pathogenesis of LVV.

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Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest Kornelis S.M. van der Geest received speaking fee from Roche, and research support from AbbVie and Siemens Healthineers. Other authors had no conflicts of interest to declare. The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests. Kornelis S.M. van der Geest reports a relationship with Roche that includes: speaking and lecture fees. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.