BIRC5 and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: To directly evaluate the contribution of NFATc1 to the expression of aging-associated prosurvival genes, we silenced NFATc1 in IPF fibroblasts using RNAi and demonstrated significantly reduced expression of FOXM1, BIRC5, and PLK1 genes in these cells relative to control lung fibroblasts (Figure 6A).