Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a dreadful, chronic, and irreversibly progressive disease leading to death with a few effective treatments. Our previous study suggested that repetitive hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) treatment alleviates bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis in mice. Here, we investigated the protective mechanism of HBO treatment against pulmonary fibrosis using an integrated approach. Analyzing publicly available expression data from the mouse model of bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis as well as IPF patients, several potential mechanisms of relevance to IPF pathology were identified, including increased epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and glycolysis. High EMT or glycolysis scores in bronchoalveolar lavage were strong independent predictors of mortality in multivariate analysis. These processes were potentially driven by hypoxia and blocked by HBO treatment. Together, these data support HBO treatment as a viable strategy against pulmonary fibrosis.

特发性肺纤维化 (IPF) 是一种可怕的、慢性的、不可逆转的进行性疾病，如果没有一些有效的治疗方法，就会导致死亡。我们之前的研究表明，重复高压氧 (HBO) 治疗可减轻博来霉素诱导的小鼠肺纤维化。在这里，我们使用综合方法研究了 HBO 治疗对肺纤维化的保护机制。分析来自博来霉素诱导的肺纤维化小鼠模型以及 IPF 患者的公开表达数据，确定了与 IPF 病理学相关的几种潜在机制，包括增加的上皮-间质转化 (EMT) 和糖酵解。在多变量分析中，支气管肺泡灌洗中的高 EMT 或糖酵解评分是死亡率的强独立预测因子。这些过程可能由缺氧驱动并被 HBO 治疗阻断。总之，这些数据支持 HBO 治疗作为对抗肺纤维化的可行策略。