Submitted on March 2, 2009
Accepted on June 24, 2009
Contribution of Epithelial Derived Fibroblasts to Bleomycin Induced Lung Fibrosis
Harikrishna Tanjore1, Xiaochuan C Xu1, Vasiliy V Polosukhin1, Amber L Degryse1, Bo Li1, Wei Han1, Taylor P Sherrill1, David Plieth2, Eric G Neilson2, Timothy S Blackwell3, and William E Lawson4*
1 Department of Medicine, Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, United States,
2 Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, United States,
3 Department of Medicine, Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Department of Cancer Biology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee; Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee,
4 Department of Medicine, Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, United States; Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, United States
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: william.lawson{at}vanderbilt.edu.
Rationale: Lung fibroblasts are key mediators of fibrosis resultingin accumulation of excessive interstitial collagen and extracellularmatrix, but their origins are not well defined.
Objectives:We aimed to elucidate the contribution of lung epithelium derivedfibroblasts via epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in theintratracheal bleomycin model.
Methods: Primary type II alveolarepithelial cells (AECs) were cultured from Immortomice and exposedto Transforming Growth Factor 1 (TGF1) and Epidermal GrowthFactor (EGF). Cell fate reporter mice that permanently markcells of lung epithelial lineage with -galactosidase (gal) weredeveloped to study EMT, while bone marrow chimeras expressinggreen fluorescent protein (GFP) under control of the fibroblastassociated S100A4 promoter were generated to examine bone marrowderived fibroblasts. Mice were given intratracheal bleomycin(0.08 units). Immunostaining was performed for S100A4, gal,GFP, and -smooth muscle actin (-SMA).
Measurements and MainResults: In vitro, primary type II AECs undergo phenotypic changesof EMT when exposed to TGF1 and EGF with loss of pro-surfactantprotein C and e-cadherin and gain of S100A4 and type I pro-collagen.In vivo, using cell fate reporter mice, approximately 1/3 ofS100A4+ fibroblasts were derived from lung epithelium at 2 weekspost bleomycin. From bone marrow chimera studies, 1/5 of S100A4+fibroblasts were derived from bone marrow at this same timepoint. Myofibroblasts rarely derived from EMT or bone marrowprogenitors.
Conclusions: Both EMT and bone marrow progenitorscontribute to S100A4+ fibroblasts in bleomycin induced lungfibrosis. However, neither origin is a principal contributorto lung myofibroblasts.
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