FIGURE 5.

Pirfenidone ameliorates pulmonary remodelling without affecting lung function and inflammation in a bleomycin (Bleo)-induced mouse model of pulmonary fibrosis. a) Schematic representation of pirfenidone (P) treatment in the bleomycin-induced mouse model of pulmonary fibrosis. Lung function measurements and organ collection was performed 21 days after bleomycin and 14 days after pirfenidone treatment. b) Lung function measurements showing quasi-static compliance (Cst) and tissue dampening/resistance (G). c) Hydroxyproline measurement of collagen in lung tissue of saline and bleomycin-treated mice with (+P) and without pirfenidone. Data are presented as boxplots with dot-plot overlays. Statistical analysis was performed using nonparametric Kruskal–Wallis testing with post-analysis to compare specific groups. d) Percentage of nonmuscularised (nonmus.), partially muscularised (part mus.) and fully muscularised (fully mus.) vessels <100 μm in diameter. n=5 (Bleo) or n=7 (Bleo+P). Data are presented as mean±sd. e) Inflammatory cell and f) eosinophil counts in the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) of bleomycin and saline-treated mice with (+P) and without pirfenidone treatment. g) Heat map representation with hierarchical clustering of relative proportions of inflammatory cell populations in BAL of bleomycin and saline-treated mice with (+P) and without pirfenidone treatment. Data were normalised using sqrt(sqrt(cellcount)); z-scores are shown. h and i) Quantitative real-time PCR analysis of h) interleukin-4 (IL4) and i) vascular endothelial-cadherin (Cdh5) gene expression. Data are presented as boxplots with dot-plot overlays. i.t.: intratracheal; ns: nonsignificant. *: p<0.05, **: p<0.01.