title: Correlation between the airway branching patterns and the heterogeneous distribution of the lesions in bleomycin-injured mouse lung: a 3-D morphometric study.
abstract: The possible roles of airway branching patterns on the pathogenesis of lung diseases, especially on the heterogeneous distribution of the lesions, were examined through three-dimensional (3-D) morphometric analysis of a mouse lung injury, induced by bleomycin. On serial sections of a mouse lung damaged by subcutaneous injection of bleomycin, we performed a computer-assisted reconstruction of the lung for visualizing the relation of airways with the distribution of the lesions, and defined the features of bronchial routes to each lesion by four parameters: LTB; the distance from the hilum, Ng; generation numbers, RD(min); irregularity of airway branching, and thetaTB; the grade of airway recurrence. Among these four parameters, only thetaTB was found to correlate with the severity of lesions (p < 0.05 by an ANOVA test), which was proved by a posthoc test (p < 0.0001). These results showing the acini supplied by recurrent branches are more prone to be damaged than those by non-recurrent branches suggest that branching patterns may underlie the heterogeneous distribution of lesions in diffuse interstitial lung diseases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Respiratory Oncology and Molecular Medicine, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Onuma
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ebina
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nukiwa
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D000903:Antibiotics, Antineoplastic / Q000633:toxicity*; D001761:Bleomycin / Q000633:toxicity*; D001980:Bronchi / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008168:Lung / Q000473:pathology*; D008171:Lung Diseases / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000473:pathology*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL
chemical_list: D000903:Antibiotics, Antineoplastic; D001761:Bleomycin