Transcriptome analysis of murine lung epithelial cells and fibroblasts derived from bleomycin-injured alveolospheres

Pulmonary fibrosis is a devatating lung disease with limited effective treatment. Because fibrotic responses are considered to be regulated by complex cellular and molecular circuits, it is difficult to demonstrate a causal relationship of cells, molecules, and cell-cell interactions with diseases in vivo. To overcome this issue, we established bleomycin (BLM)-stimulated alveolosphere model as an ex vivo culture model. To clarify whether our ex vivo model recapitulates the cellular and molecular response to BLM-induced lung injury, we performed RNA-seq (Bulk RNA-seq) analysis of the BLM-stimulated alveolospheres generated by co-culturing murine lung epithelial cells and lung fibroblasts.