Figure 5

Cultured CD45 ⁺ Pro-collagen (Col)-Iα⁺ cells obtained from patients with pulmonary fibrosis demonstrate significant heterogeneity. (a,b) Spindle-shaped cells in cultured monocytes obtained from (a) control samples and (b) idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) samples. The increase in number of spindle-shaped cells is seen in suggests an increase in fibrocytes. Similar results were seen in connective tissue disease interstitial lung disease (CTD-ILD) (data not shown). (c-f) Immunophenotyping of the cultured cells shown in (a) and (b). (c) In contrast to CD45⁺Pro-Col-Iα1⁺CD34⁺CD14^- cells, which are quite rare and do not differ in frequency between normal (n = 8), (c), IPF (n = 7), and CTD-ILD (n = 11), CD45⁺Pro-Col-Iα1⁺CD34^-CD14⁺ cells (d), as well as CD45⁺Pro-Col-Iα1⁺CD34⁺CD14⁺ cells (e) are increased in IPF and CTD-ILD patients. CD45⁺Pro-Col-Iα1⁺CD34^-CD14^- cells did not differ between groups (f). Among the patients with CTD-ILD, subgroup analysis did not detect a difference between systemic sclerosis (SSc)-ILD and amyopathic antisynthetase syndrome (AMAS) patients (data not shown). *P < 0.05 **P < 0.01 ***P < 0.001.