mr-compatible small-animal monitoring and gating system  (SA Instruments)

Journal: Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy

Article Title: Clinical investigation on nebulized human umbilical cord MSC-derived extracellular vesicles for pulmonary fibrosis treatment

doi: 10.1038/s41392-025-02262-3

Figure Lengend Snippet: Efficacy of nebulized hUCMSC-EVs in treating injury-induced lung fibrosis in mice. a A schematic representation of the animal experiments is provided. On day 1, mice were administered intratracheally with bleomycin (BLM; 1.5/2.5 mg/kg body weight) or an equivalent volume of saline solution. After 2 h, three groups of mice challenged with BLM underwent nebulization with hUCMSC-EVs at three different doses (2.5 × 10 7 , 7.5 × 10 7 , 2.25 × 10 8 particles), while one group of BLM-challenged mice and the control group (without BLM challenge) received the same volume of saline treatment. Mice were randomly assigned to 5 groups ( n = 5 per group). b Kaplan-Meier survival curves of mice receiving different interventions (BLM; 2.5 mg/kg body weight). c Micro-CT images of lungs from mice in the experiment. The images were taken at 18th day post-injury. (BLM; 1.5 mg/kg body weight, UC-EVs represents 2.5 × 10 7 , 1 × EVs) d Lung volumes evaluated based on the three-dimensional reconstruction data from micro-CT; n = 5, p values were calculated. e Breath distention and f Oxygen saturation levels were measured by the MouseOx Small Animal Vital Signs Monitor. P values were calculated by two two-tailed t-test; n = 5. g The lung weight histogram depicts the weight of entire lung tissue in each group. h The lung coefficient was determined as wet lung weight (g) divided by total body weight (g). i Representative histological lung sections from mice at 21 days post-injury stained with H&E and Masson’s trichrome. Scale bars, 500 μm or 50 μm. j Quantitative evaluation of fibrotic severity with the Ashcroft score in lungs of mice receiving different interventions. The Ashcroft scores were calculated based on the H&E staining. The severity of fibrotic alterations in each section was assessed as the mean score in the observed microscopic fields. Ten fields per section were selected and the scores were marked by two evaluators and averaged as the final values. Quantitative PCR analyses for the relative mRNA levels of Col1a1 ( k ), Fibronectin ( l ) and Col3a1 ( m ), in the lung tissues of mice. Western blots of Fibronectin ( n ) and Col3a1 ( o ) in the lungs ( n = 3). GAPDH was used as a loading control. Molecular weight was labeled

Article Snippet: Pulse distention, breath distention, and oxygen saturation levels were measured by the MouseOx Small Animal Vital Signs Monitor (STARR, USA) following the manufacturer’s instructions ( https://www.starrlifesciences.com/ ).

Techniques: Saline, Control, Micro-CT, Two Tailed Test, Staining, Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction, Western Blot, Molecular Weight, Labeling