HSF1 and keratoconus: To illuminate above hypothesis, we next treated KC mice with KRIBB11 (a well-known HSF1 inhibitor) to pharmacologically inhibit the activation of HSF1 (Additional file 1: Fig. S1C left), and we found that KRIBB11 reduced the area of pancreatic precancerous lesions (both the number and the area of PanINs at all stages) compared with that in vehicle KC mice (Fig. 2a-c).