{"doi":"10.7150/thno.74809","title":"Essential role of IL-17 in acute exacerbation of pulmonary fibrosis induced by non-typeable <i>Haemophilus influenzae</i>","abstract":"Background: Acute exacerbation (AE) of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) has a poor prognosis and lacks effective therapy. Animal models that mimic AE-IPF can greatly accelerate investigation of its pathogenesis and development of effective therapy. However, there are few reports of animal models of AE-IPF caused by bacteria. Thus, our study aimed to establish a mouse model of bacterium-induced AE-IPF and explore the potential pathogenic mechanism of AE-IPF. Methods: Mice were instilled intranasally with bleomycin (BLM) followed by non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) strain NT127. Murine survival, bacterial load, body weight and pulmonary histopathological changes were evaluated. We analyzed the T cell and inflammatory cell responses in the lungs. Results: Infection with 10 7 CFU NT127 triggered AE in mice with PF induced by 30 g BLM. Compared with BLM-instilled mice, the BLM/NT127-treated mice showed more obvious airway inflammation, lower survival rate, higher inflammatory cell response, and increased proportions and numbers of IL-17 + CD4 + , IL-17 + T, IL-22 + CD4 + and regulatory T (Treg) cells in lungs. T cells were the predominant source of IL-17. IL-17 gene knockout mice with AE-IPF had quicker body weight recovery, milder pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis, stronger IL-22 + CD4 + T, TGF- + T and Treg cell responses, and weaker neutrophil and eosinophil responses than wild-type mice with AE-IPF. Conclusions: NTHi infection after BLM-induced IPF can cause AE-IPF in a murine model. This novel model can be used to investigate the pathogenesis of AE-IPF and develop new therapies for AE-IPF caused by bacteria. IL-17 is essential for the development of AE-IPF, and it may be a new therapeutic target for bacteria-induced AE-IPF.","journal":"Theranostics","year":2022,"id":259982,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":16,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9604,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":913745,"name":"Xinyun Zhang","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":328690,"name":"Cheng Yang","orcid":"0000-0001-9431-290X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":913066,"name":"Shi Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-6893-0269","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":683780,"name":"Hao Shen","orcid":"0000-0002-8557-8973","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":913744,"name":"Shengsen Chen","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":44,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:26:03.189798Z","pmid":"35836804","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}