Fig. 6

BMSCs-CM decreased the levels of genes for fibrosis and attenuated the injured alveolar epithelial cells. BMSCs-CM attenuate silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis and increase the expression of alveolar epithelial. The fibrosis marker expression of collagen I (a, b), collagen III (c, d), and FN (e, f) in the silica group was significantly increased compared with that in the control group, but was decreased after addition of BMSCs-CM. For the alveolar epithelial markers, either the level of AQP-5 (g, h) or SP-C (i, j) was decreased in the silica group compared with that in the control group. But the expression was increased by BMSCs-CM for day 15 (a, c, e, g, i) and for day 30 (b, d, f, h, j). The data were presented as the means ± SD. **p < 0.01 versus the control group; ^##p < 0.01 versus the silica group; ^&p < 0.05, ^&&p < 0.01 versus the silica + BMSCs group