PINK1 and pulmonary fibrosis: However, their previous study demonstrated that impaired mitochondria in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and aging lungs with upregulation of endoplasmic reticulum stress were associated with low expression of PINK1, and PINK1 deficiency leads to swollen, dysfunctional mitochondria and defective mitophagy (Bueno et al., 2015).