Human bronchial epithelial cell-derived extracellular vesicles attenuate pulmonary fibrosis through inhibiting TGF-β-WNT crosstalk [miRNA-Seq]

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is characterized by devastating and progressive lung parenchymal fibrosis with poor prognosis. An aberrant recapitulation of lung developmental genes including transforming growth factor (TGF)-β and WNT has been widely implicated in the abnormal wound healing process following repetitive alveolar epithelial injury during IPF pathogenesis. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) including exosomes and microvesicles have been shown to carry various bioactive molecules and are involved in a variety of physiological and pathological processes. Here, we demonstrate that human bronchial epithelial cell-derived EVs (HBEC EVs) inhibited TGF-β-induced both myofibroblast differentiation and lung epithelial cellular senescence through attenuating WNT signaling. To ask how HBEC-EVs inhibited TGF-β-induced both myofibroblast differentiation and lung epithelial cellular senescence through attenuating WNT signaling, miRNA RNA-seq of HBEC-EVs was performed. EVs were isolated from the conditioned media of HBEC and BEAS2B (bronchial epithelial cell line) cells. Total RNAs were extracted from these EVs. miRNA-seq analysis was performed using 20ng of EV miRNA.