Figure 5: Lung injury and fibrosis are attenuated in Vim^−/− bone marrow chimeric mice.

(a) Treatment protocol: CD45.1⁺ WT mice were lethally irradiated (6 Gy) and two sets of mice were transplanted either with 1 × 10⁶ CD45.2⁺ WT or Vim^−/− BM cells to generate chimeric mice. After 6.5 weeks (w), when >90% of AM were of donor (WT and Vim^−/−) phenotype, chimeric mice were treated with saline or bleomycin and subjected to analyses. Bleomycin-induced lung injury was assessed by protein levels (b), and ELISA for IL-1β (c), IL-6 (d) and TGF-β (e) in BALF, 5 days (d5) after instillation. Bleomycin-induced fibrosis was assessed 21 days (d21) after instillation by measuring collagen content in lungs by Sircol assay (f) and by histological examination of lung tissue with H&E staining (g). Original magnification × 40; scale bar, 200 μm. Data in b are means±s.e., c–f are means±s.d. from two independent experiments, each with at least three animals per experiment. *P<0.05, **P<0.001, ***P<0.0001, by one-way analysis of variance with a correction provided by the Bonferroni multiple comparisons test.