Mapping spatially resolved transcriptomes in human and mouse pulmonary fibrosis

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive lung disease with poor prognosis and limited treatment options. Efforts to identify effective treatments are thwarted by limited understanding of IPF pathogenesis and poor translatability of available preclinical models. To address these limitations, we generated spatially resolved transcriptome maps of human IPF and bleomycin-induced mouse lung fibrosis. Overall design: Female C57BL/6NCrl mice were challenged with 30 µl saline or bleomycin (Apollo Scientific, BI3543, Chemtronica Sweden; 40 µg/mouse) dissolved in saline via oropharyngeal route administration. Lungs were collected at day 7 (n=6 BLM, n=3 vehicle) or day 21 (n=6 BLM, n=3 vehicle) following administration. The mice were purchased from Charles River (Germany), and were 8 weeks + 5 days old at the time of study initiation. Animal handling conformed to standards established by the Council of Europe ETS123 AppA, the Helsinki Convention for the Use and Care of Animals, Swedish legislation, and AstraZeneca global internal standards. All mouse experiments were approved by the Gothenburg Ethics Committee for Experimental Animals in Sweden and conformed to Directive 2010/63/EU. The present study was approved by the local Ethical committee in Gothenburg (EA000680-2017) and the approved site number is 31-5373/11.