Mice with Focal Pulmonary Fibrosis Caused by Monocrotaline are Insensitive to Urethane Induction of Lung Tumorigenesis

Abstract

To establish the characteristics of an optimized pulmonary fibrosis model, male ICR mice were given 4 weekly sc injections of 150 or 0 mg/kg monocrotaline (MCT) and maintained without further treatment for 33 wk (Experiment 1). The final mortality in the MCT group was 64%. Epithelial cells with large bizarre nuclei and an increased incidence of alveolar/bronchiolar hyperplasias were typically observed. In areas of pulmonary fibrosis, the PCNA labeling index (LI) in the alveolar/airway epithelium was significantly elevated. DNA content analysis demonstrated a larger range (4-8C) for the ploidy pattern of alveolar epithelium with large bizarre nuclei than in the normal epithelium (2C). In Experiment 2, the relationship between pulmonary fibrosis development and lung tumorigenesis was investigated. Mice were given 4 weekly sc injections of 150 and 0 mg/kg MCT, followed by a single ip injection of 1,000 or 500 mg/kg urethane (UR) on week 7, then maintained without further treatment for an additional 15 wk. UR following MCT-induced inflammatory changes, fibrosis, and epithelia with large bizarre nuclei but no tumorous lesions, in spite of the fact that treatment with UR alone caused a high incidence of pulmonary tumors. Hyperplasias were seen in all groups, but the multiplicity in the combined groups tended to be decreased by the MCT pretreatment. The present study demonstrated that this new protocol is more suitable than previous one for the experimental production of pulmonary fibrosis. Furthermore, the induction of lung tumors by UR was completely depressed in mice with MCT-induced pulmonary fibrosis, suggesting that alveolar epithelial cells are resistant to this lung carcinogen under these conditions.