PIEZO1 and renal fibrosis: By employing human proximal tubular cells (HK2 cells), Zhao et al. [127] were able to show that PIEZO1 inhibition via RNAi prevented FAK activation (FAKp397) and the pro-fibrotic HK2 phenotype (characterized by, e.g., TGFB1 expression, which, in turn, induced PIEZO1 expression) in the clinical context of renal fibrosis.