Increased acetylated-Smad3 (Ac-Smad3) protein expression is associated with increased cardiac fibrosis (Zhang et al., 2017; Li et al., 2018), and RES was reported to decrease the Ac-Smad3 protein expression to inhibit renal fibrosis (Huang et al., 2014). The gene discussed is SMAD3; the disease is renal fibrosis.