The Tissue/Pathology Core is a central facility providing support for the Investigators of The University of Michigan SCOR proposal. This Core will process both human or rodent lung tissue for the purpose of tissue protein and mRNA analysis, light microscopy, image analysis (qualitative and quantitative measurements) of microscopic images, and isolation, passage, and characterization of human pulmonary or dermal fibroblasts. Human bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid and cells will be processed for protein and mRNA analysis, levels of N-terminal type III procollagen peptide by immunoassay, and total cell count and differential. In addition, this core will generate a Pulmonary Pathology Tissue Score for each human lung specimen obtained from both patients with interstitial lung disease and control (patients undergoing thoracic surgery for reasons other than interstitial lung disease). These services will be used by all the projects of the SCOR proposal. Projects I, II, and III will extensively use isolated pulmonary (Projects I, II, and III) and dermal (Project II) fibroblasts from normal, IPF, and sarcoidosis patients. Projects I, IV, and V will require processing of bleomycin- induced rodent pulmonary fibrosis or normal lung tissue for further analysis. The levels of total protein, albumin, and N-terminal type III procollagen peptide in the BAL fluid will be used by both the Clinical Core and basic science projects I, II, and III to correlate these levels with levels of angiogenic or angiostatic CXC chemokines, metabolites of arachidonate, and profiles of Th1 and Th2 cytokines, respectively. We believe that we have assembled the appropriate personnel with the needed expertise to design and conduct the appropriate studies which will provide the Investigators of this SCOR project with reliable and reproducible specimens.
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