Bulk tissue RNA sequencing from human donors with and without lung fibrosis

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a lethal fibrotic lung condition with an unpredictable disease course. The pathology of IPF starts in the lung bases such that a patient’s lung apices are comparatively less fibrotic at the time of transplantation. We hypothesized that RNA sequencing of the lung apices and bases may identify differentially expressed genes that better reflect disease progression in IPF. Samples were derived from both right and left lungs when available and RNA Seq was performed on a total of 139 samples. High-quality mRNA was collected from resected lung tissue from 20 patients with IPF, 14 non-diseased control donors whose lungs were deemed unsuitable for transplantation, and 9 patients with end-stage interstitial lung disease other than IPF (non-IPF ILD).