Mouse lung gene expression analysis after repetitive hyperbaric oxygen exposure based on RNA-seq

Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) is widely applied to treat a number of hypoxia-related diseases. Previous studies focused on the immediate effect of HBO-exposure induced oxidative stress on lungs, but knowledge regarding the chronic effects from repetitive HBO exposure is limited, especially at the gene expression level. We found that repetitive HBO exposure did not alter the morphology of murine lungs. However, by deconvolution of RNA-seq from those mice lungs using CIBERSORTx and the expression profile matrices of 8 mesenchymal cell subtypes obtained from bleomycin-treated mouse lungs, we identify several mesenchymal cell subtype changes. These include increases in Col13a1 matrix fibroblasts, mesenchymal progenitors and mesothelial cell populations and decreases in lipofibroblasts, endothelial and Pdgfrb high cell populations. Our data suggest that repetitive HBO exposure may affect biological processes in the lungs such as response to wounding, extracellular matrix, vasculature development and immune response. To assess the effect of repetitive HBO-exposure on mice lungs, six to eight weeks old male C57BL/6 mice (20-25 g) mice were divided into control group and HBO group.The mice in the HBO group were subjected to the 2.5 ATA (Atmosphere Absolute) HBO once a day for 11 consecutive days, 90 min for each time, while the mice in the control group were placed in the chamber for the same duration without pure oxygen pressurization. The day after the end of thel ast exposure, lung tissues were collected to do RNA-seq. Four mouse lungs were sequenced in each group.