Expression data from lung tissue of Zmpste24 defient or wildtype c57BL/6 mice

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a devastating aging-associated disease of unknown etiology. Despite that aging is a major risk factor, the mechanisms linking aging with this disease are uncertain, and experimental models to explore them in lung fibrosis are scanty. We examined the fibrotic response to bleomycin-induced lung injury in Zmpste24-deficient mice, which exhibit nuclear lamina defects developing accelerated aging. We found that young WT and Zmpste24(-/-) mice developed a similar fibrotic response to bleomycin. Unexpectedly, while old WT mice developed severe lung fibrosis, accelerated aged Zmpste24-/- mice were protected showing scant lung damage. To investigate possible mechanisms associated with this resistance to fibrosis, we compared the transcriptome signature of the lungs and found that Zmpste24(-/-) mice showed downregulation of several core and associated matrisome genes compared with WT mice. Interestingly, some microRNAs that target extracellular matrix molecules such as miR23a, miR27a, miR29a, miR29b-1,miR145a, and miR491 were dysregulated resulting in downregulation of profibrotic pathways such as TGF-β/SMAD3/NF-κB and Wnt3a/β-catenin signaling axis. These results indicate that the absence of Zmpste24 in aging mice results in impaired lung fibrotic response after injury, which is likely associated to the dysregulation of fibrosis-related miRNAs. Aging is a driving force of pulmonary fibrosis. Mice laking Zmpste24 have an accelerated aging phenotype. During the development of the disease there are several extracellular matrix genes, principally collagens upregulated. We use microarray to unveil changes associated with the pulmonary response in aged mice Lung samples 21 days after bleomycin injury were selected for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. We sought to obtain changes associated with the fibrotic response in young WT and Zmpste24 KO mice and old WT and Zmpste24 KO ones 21 days after administratiuon of bleomycin. We used three biological replicates for each condition.