Figure 2

Effect of fibroblast phenotypes on re-epithelialization of A549 scratch wounds. (A) Representative real time images illustrating the effect of co-culture with lung fibroblast from two normal and two IPF donors on re-epithelialization of A549 (epithelial) scratch wound. Co-culture with NHLFs prevented while presence of IPF fibroblasts promoted wound closure compared to epithelial mono-culture. (B) Compared to A549 mono-cultures, wound closure was significantly higher with IPF fibroblasts at the 72 h and 96 h time points closure whereas it was significantly inhibited by NHLFs. Furthermore, compared to IPF co-cultures, there was significantly less wound closure in NHLF co-cultures at 48 h, 72 h, and 96 h. Results are representative of n = 3 experiments for each donor. * P <0.05, ** P <0.01, ***P <0.001 compared with A549-NHLF.