ArticleNPJ Regenerative medicine2025
A ferret model demonstrates sustained fibrosis, restrictive physiology, and airway proximalization.
Article in NPJ Regenerative medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Animal models of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a systematic review.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Progenitor Resilience and the Early Onset of Chronic Lung Diseases: NHLBI workshop report.American journal of respiratory cell and molecular biology · 2026Article
- Advances in our understanding of distal progenitors in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: implications for novel therapeutics.The European respiratory journal · 2026Review
- Ferrets and genetically modified ferrets as model organisms in biomedical research: a review.Frontiers in genome editing · 2026Review
- Isolation and Culture of Ferret Airway Stem Cells.Bio-protocol · 2025Article
- Ferret model of bleomycin-induced lung injury shares features of human idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
20 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Unlike rodents, ferrets have human-like distribution of submucosal glands expressing MUC5B, associated with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). We evaluated ferrets exposed to a single dose of bleomycin (5 U/kg) longitudinally, and found sustained restrictive physiology, increased opacification and fibrotic injury in the lungs through 22 weeks. Notably, these lungs had an aberrant "proximalization" repair phenotype indicated by increased proportion of smaller airways co-expressing club cell secretory protein and alpha-tubulin that was associated with extent of fibrotic injury. We also observed MUC5B-positive cystic structures in the distal lung suggestive of honeycombing, consistent with increase of MUC5B+ airways in combination with a size shift to smaller airways. We conclude that ferrets exhibit aberrant repair and pathologic features characteristic of human IPF, including proximalization of the distal airways that has not been recapitulated in rodents. Heightened MUC5B expression may play a key role in promoting airway remodeling and sustained lung injury in IPF.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.