They regulate multiple signaling pathways such as Wnt/β-catenin (Zhao et al., 2022), TGF-β1/Smad (Mao et al., 2019; Wu et al., 2022), Akt/mTOR (Lian et al., 2022), CX3CL1-RAF/MEK/ERK (Hu et al., 2022b), mTORC1/p70S6K (Chen et al., 2019), SIRT1-NF-κB (Wang et al., 2018b), and interfere with different cytokine or inflammatory factors expression to regulate the development and progression of renal fibrosis. The gene discussed is CX3CL1; the disease is renal fibrosis.