The primarily pathogenesis of IPF, an incurable respiratory disease is believed to over-repair to
lung injury. The development of new drugs for IPF has increased the necessity of identifying
biomarkers for predicting clinical behavior and the selection of the appropriate treatment strategy for individual patient.We and another group found that
periostin, a matricellular
protein expressed specifically in areas of ongoing fibrotic lesions, such as fibroblastic foci in lung tissues from human IPF or murine
bleomycin-induced
lung injury models. Murine
bleomycin-induced
lung injury was improved by the constant suppression of
periostin expression and treatment with neutralizing anti-
periostin antibodies at the fibroproliferative phase. Moreover, total
periostin can predict both short-term declines of pulmonary function and overall survival in IPF patients. Our group also established a new
enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit that is more specific for IPF compared with the conventional kit. This new
periostin ELISA kit specifically detects monomeric form, whereas the conventional kit detects both monomeric and oligomeric forms. The monomeric
periostin levels can be used to predict pulmonary function decline and to distinguish IPF patients from healthy controls.In conclusion,
periostin may play an important role in fibrogenesis and could be a potential
biomarker for predicting
disease progression and
therapeutic effect in IPF patients.