Galectin-3 and Fibrosis: Research in the Last 5 Years

Tissue fibrosis is initially an adaptive response to organ injury, but eventually, parenchymal scarring and subsequent cellular dysfunction and organ failure ensue. Few therapies currently exist for fibrosis, especially those that target fibrogenesis. Galectin-3 (Gal-3) is a member of the lectin family of proteins, is produced predominantly by macrophages, and has essential functions in inflammation and angiogenesis. Gal-3 is activated in fibrotic models and abnormally elevated in fibrotic patients. Gal-3 inhibitors help to ameliorate or prevent fibrosis. For this review, we searched for original articles and reviews published between Jul 1, 2014, and Nov 1, 2019, using the following search terms (or combination of words) in PubMed: “galectin 3”, “fibrosis”, “heart”, “cardiac”, “liver”, “hepatic”, “lung”, “pulmonary”, “kidney”, and “renal”.