SMAD3 and congestive heart failure: Ni et al. (2017) found that SFI can effectively improve cardiac function in the rate model of congestive heart failure (CHF) and attenuate ventricular remodeling and myocardial fibrosis by regulating TGF-β/Smads signaling pathway, upregulating Smad7 and downregulating TGF-β1, Smad2 and Smad3 gene expression.