Cardiomyocyte-derived BDNF restricts cardiac fibrosis by decreasing the activity of the TGF-β/Smad2/3 pathway and increasing Smad7 expression (opens in new tab)

Background and objectiveTo investigate the role of cardiomyocyte-derived BDNF as an endogenous regulator to decrease cardiac fibrosis, its underlying mechanism and therapeutic potential.MethodsSingle-nuclei RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq), KEGG, Gene Ontology and cell‒cell interaction analyses were performed to identify changes in cardiac cells, cardiac functions and pathways due to the conditional knockout of cardiomyocyte-derived BDNF (cardiomyocyte-BDNF-KO). Protein C-terminal sequencing, qPCR,...