SMAD3 and pulmonary fibrosis: Liu Q. et al. (2016) demonstrated that Sal B attenuated pulmonary fibrosis by inhibiting Smad-dependent signaling and the Smad-independent MAPK pathway. Sal B inhibited the expression of TGF-β1 and phosphorylation of Smad3 in a rat model of pulmonary fibrosis induced by paraquat. In addition, Sal B enhanced nuclear translocation and expression of nuclear factor erythrocyte 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and decreased the expression of ROS-producing enzyme Nox4 (Liu B. et al., 2016).