Proteomic profiling of broncho-alveolar lavage-EVs from healthy and bleomycin-exposed mice

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a lethal chronic lung disease characterized by aberrant intercellular communication, extracellular matrix deposition and destruction of functional lung tissue. While extracellular vesicles (EVs) accumulate in the IPF lung, their cargo and biological effects remain unclear. We interrogated the proteome of EV and non-EV fractions during pulmonary fibrosis and characterize their contribution to fibrosis. EVs accumulated 14 days post-bleomycin challenge, correlating with decreased lung function and initiated fibrogenesis in healthy precision-cut lung slices. We conducted label-free proteomics of broncho-alveolar lavage fluid (BALF)-EVs collected from mice challenged with bleomycin or relevant controls. We identified 107 proteins enriched in fibrotic vesicles. From this signature, we focused on Secreted Frizzled Related Protein 1 (SFRP1). Our work, published in JCI Insight (PMID: 39315549), revealed altered EV protein cargo in fibrotic EVs promoting fibrogenesis and identifies fibroblast derived vesicular SFRP1 as fibrotic mediator and potential therapeutic target for IPF. The present dataset includes the label-free proteomic analysis of BALF-EVs from mice with bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis (D14, n=6) or saline controls (n=8), as well as corresponding non vesicular fractions (SN).