Integrative Transcriptomic and Proteomic Analysis Reveals Mechanisms of Silica-induced Pulmonary Fibrosis in Rats

To explore proteomic and transcriptomic changes in rat model of silicosis, transcriptomic analysis by microarray and tandem mass tags (TMT)-based proteomic analysis were performed to reveal the expression of mRNAs and proteins in lung tissues. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) were applied to analyze the alterated genes and proteins. The integrated analysis was performed between transcriptome and proteome. Furthermore, the data were further verified by RT-qPCR and parallel reaction monitoring (PRM). In total, 244 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) showed the same trend as that of the corresponding differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (named DEPs/DEGs). GM2a, CHI3L1, LCN2 and GNAI1, which were validated consistently by RT-qPCR and PRM, are involved in the extracellular matrix (ECM) and inflammation contributed to fibrosis in silicosis. Twenty male Wistar rats were randomly divided into two groups with 10 rats each. Rats in the model group were intratracheally instilled with 50 mg/mL silicon dioxide (1mL per rat) and rats in the control group were treated with 1.0 mL saline (1mL per rat). Twenty-eight days later, transcriptomic analysis by microarray and tandem mass tags (TMT)-based proteomic analysis were performed to reveal the expression of mRNAs and proteins in lung tissues.