ORIGINAL ARTICLE BASIC SCIENCE Fibrillin-2 is a key mediator of smooth muscle extracellular matrix homeostasis during mouse tracheal tubulogenesis Wenguang Yin1,8, Hyun-Taek Kim1, ShengPeng Wang2,3, Felix Gunawan1, Rui Li2, Carmen Buettner1, Beate Grohmann1, Gerhard Sengle4,5, Debora Sinner6, Stefan Offermanns2,7 and Didier Y.R. Stainier1,8 Affiliations: 1Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Dept of Developmental Genetics, Bad Nauheim, Germany. 2Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Dept of Pharmacology, Bad Nauheim, Germany. 3Cardiovascular Research Center, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China. 4Center for Biochemistry, Medical Faculty, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. 5Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC), Cologne, Germany. 6Division of Neonatology and Pulmonary Biology, CCHMC, University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine Cincinnati, OH, USA. 7Center for Molecular Medicine, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany. 8W. Yin and D.Y.R. Stainier are joint senior authors. Correspondence: Didier Y.R. Stainier, Dept of Developmental Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Ludwigstrasse 43, 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany. E-mail:
[email protected] @ERSpublications Defects in extracellular matrix formation lead to altered airway smooth muscle organisation in tracheal stenosis, and pharmacological decrease of p38 phosphorylation or matrix metalloproteinase activity partially attenuates these defects http://ow.ly/4zku30mWub3 Cite this article as: Yin W, Kim H-T, Wang SP, et al. Fibrillin-2 is a key mediator of smooth muscle extracellular matrix homeostasis during mouse tracheal tubulogenesis. Eur Respir J 2019; 53: 1800840 [https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.00840-2018]. ABSTRACT Epithelial tubes, comprised of polarised epithelial cells around a lumen, are crucial for organ function.