Fig. 7

Aged B-MSCs have a decreased capacity to prevent lung fibrosis progression. C57BL/6 mice were subjected to bleomycin injury and subsequently treated with bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (B-MSCs) from young individuals (black), aged individuals (Old; green), idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients (red) or cell medium (blue) intravenously at day 0 (a–c) or day 7 (d–f). a, d Percent of initial body weight curves are shown. The group that received B-MSCs from young donors presented lower weight loss compared with the bleomycin control group, and mice receiving B-MSCs from other groups (old and IPF patients) have a similar weight loss. Infusion of cells at day 7 show a higher weight loss when treated with IPF-MSCs (d); mean ± SEM; n = 5 in bleomycin control group and IPF B-MSC; n = 9 in young and old B-MSCs. b Masson’s trichrome staining of representative histologic sections (20×, scale bar = 100 μm). c Quantitation of hydroxyproline (Pro-OH) content in the lung. e, f In the group that received cells at day 7, mice treated with B-MSCs from IPF donors have higher levels of expression of profibrotic and proinflammatory genes compared with controls and young B-MSCs; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001. Cntr. control, Col collagen, FC fold-change, IL interleukin, PBS phosphate-buffered saline