Tannic acid a dietary polyphenol attenuates experimentally induced pulmonary fibrosis and allergic airway inflammation in mice via multitargeting activity

Abstract

Respiratory diseases are the leading cause of mortality worldwide. Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a scarring lung disease that is chronic and irreversible. Wound healing dysregulation causes irreversible lung structure loss, resulting in an organ malfunction and gas exchange disturbance, ultimately leading to respiratory failure death. Currently, existing drugs such as Pirfenidone and Nintedanib provide modest effectiveness and are associated with serious side effects, particularly in the gastrointestinal tract. In addition, the long-term survival of severe fibrotic patients depends only on lung transplantation. newlineSimilarly, asthma is also a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways that is characterized by infiltration of inflammatory cells, airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR), and airway remodeling. In India, surveys revealed a higher prevalence of bronchial asthma in adolescents, at 13.1%. Individuals with chronic asthma are associated with many features of airway remodeling, including changes in the airway epithelium, smooth muscle hypertrophy, and sub-epithelial fibrosis, ultimately resulting in loss of respiratory function. To keep asthma under control, current asthma treatment strategies rely significantly on combination therapy with multiple medications such as mast cell stabilizers, corticosteroids, leukotriene modifiers, and bronchodilators. Nevertheless, in clinical practice, variations in drug response and adverse effects are noticed. Therefore, there is a need for developing novel medicines for both pulmonary fibrosis and asthma treatment. newline newline