Animal model.
All procedure involving animals followed guidelines of and were approved by the Animal Committee of the Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine. All authors complied with the ARRIVE guidelines.
Time-dated pregnant C57BL/6 mice were purchased from CLEA Japan (Tokyo, Japan) at E14–E15 days of gestation. Animals were housed in individual cages with 12 h light-dark cycles. A standard rodent diet and water were provided ad libitum. Within 12 h of birth, newborn pups were pooled and randomly allocated to three experimental groups: room air treated with normal saline as vehicle (normoxic condition, RA + NS group) (n = 14), hyperoxia exposure treated with normal saline as vehicle (O2 + NS group) (n = 14), and hyperoxia exposure treated with HMGB1 peptide (O2 + HMGB1 group) (n = 14). Pups in the two hyperoxic conditions were housed in chambers of 90% oxygen from birth to postnatal day 14 with a brief interruption for animal care (< 10 min/day). Oxygen levels were monitored using a ProOx P110 monitor (Bio-Spherix, Redfield, NY, USA). Each nursing dam was assigned seven pups to standardize nutritional status. Dams were rotated between hyperoxia and room-air litters every 24 h to avoid oxygen toxicity. Pups received treatment with HMGB1 peptide or normal saline (control) respectively on postnatal days 4, 8, and 12. Body weight was measured on postnatal days 4, 8, 12 and 14. Mouse pups were sacrificed on postnatal day 14 for detailed evaluation.
HMGB1 peptide.
As previously reported [19,20,39], StemRIM (Osaka, Japan) employed solid-state synthesis to produce the HMGB1 peptide from the MSC mobilization domain of human HMGB1. The synthetic HMGB1 peptide was dissolved in distilled water to a concentration of 1 mg/mL prior to systemic administration.
Systemic administration of HMGB1 peptide or normal saline
Glass needles (diameter: 130 µm) for systemic administration were created using a puller and grinder. HMGB1 peptide or normal saline (each 5 mL/kg/day) was administered on postnatal days 4, 8, and 12 under isoflurane anesthesia, following published procedures [40,41]. For postnatal day 4, injections occurred via the temporal vein. On postnatal days 8 and 12, a skin incision was made from the anterior to the external auditory meatus and the posterior to the lateral canthus, exposing the facial vein for injection. Neonatal injections were performed under a microscope to visualize vessels. After injection, pups were warmed and returned to their cages.
Tissue preparation
Pups were euthanized on postnatal day 14 using isoflurane. The chest and abdominal were then opened to cut the abdominal aorta and vena cava. Lung tissue was harvested for morphometric and biochemical analyses. For morphometric analysis, the left lung was fixed using intratracheal instillation of 10% buffered formalin and kept in the solution for 24 h at room temperature before being embedded in paraffin. The right lung was weighed and stored in a deep freezer for biochemical analysis.
Lung morphometric analysis
Lung morphometric analysis was performed as described previously [42,43]. Briefly, sections (5 μm thick) sliced from paraffin blocks were stained with hematoxylin and eosin. Degree of alveolarization was estimated using the mean linear intercept (MLI), an indicator of mean alveolar diameter. The value is calculated as total length of lines drawn across the lung section divided by number of intercepts encountered. A minimum of two sections per sample and six non-overlapping microscopic fields (20× magnification) per section were evaluated.
ELISA
Frozen right lung samples were homogenized in lysis buffer with protease inhibitor. Cellular debris were removed from lysates with centrifugation at 10,000 × g and 4°C for 10 min. Supernatant protein content was quantitated using the bicinchoninic acid (BCA) method and bovine serum albumin as the standard. Inflammatory cytokines interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels were measured in the lung using the R&D Mouse Quantikine ELISA kit following manufacturer protocol (R&D Systems, Minneapolis, MN, USA).
Collagen measurements
Collagen measurements were taken from frozen right lung samples using a soluble collagen assay kit (QuickZyme Bioscience, Leiden, NLD), following manufacturer protocol. Lungs were homogenized in 1 mL of a 0.5 M acetic acid solution containing 1 mg pepsin (Nacalai Tesque, Kyoto, Japan) per 10 mg tissue. Each sample was incubated with constant shaking for 24 h at 4°C. Lysates were purified using centrifugation at 3,000 × g and 4°C for 10 min. The BCA method was again used to quantify supernatant protein content, with bovine serum albumin as the standard.
Lung isolation and tissue dissociation for scRNA-seq
Six lungs (n = 2/group) were harvested on postnatal day 14 and rinsed with Dulbecco’s PBS (Nacalai, kyoto, Japan). Lungs were rapidly dissected in RPMI-1640 medium (Nacalai, Kyoto, Japan) with 10% fetal bovine serum and finely minced in a Petri dish on ice. Tissue pieces were placed in 5 mL of enzyme mixture and digested with a gentleMACS Dissociator (Miltenyi Biotec, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany). The enzyme mixture contained the following: 50 µL of dispase (5000 U/mL) (Corning, NY), 100 uL of collagenase (100 mg/mL) (Wako, Osaka, Japan), 192 µL of elastase (26 mg/mL) (Worthington Biochemical Corporation, NJ), 10 µL of DNase I (5 U/uL) (Takara, Shiga, Japan), and 4648 µL of RPMI-1640 medium with 2% fetal bovine serum. Dissociated cells were passed through a 70 μm cell strainer and centrifuged at 300 ×g for 5 min. The supernatant was discarded and the pellet suspended in red blood cell lysis buffer (BioLegend, San Diego, CA). Cells were counted from the suspension.
Library preparation and sequencing of scRNA
Live cells were sorted and collected using a BD FACSAria III instrument (Becton Dickinson, NJ, USA). Cells were washed twice with PBS containing 0.1% bovine serum albumin and suspended at 1 × 106 cells/mL. Single cell suspensions were prepared using Chromium Next GEM Single Cell 3 GEM, Library & Gel Bead Kit v3.1 (10× Genomics, California, USA). Gene expression libraries were prepared following manufacturer protocol. A target of 6000 cells was used to generate the libraries. Libraries were sequenced on the NextSeq 2000 platform using NextSeq 2000 P3 Reagents (100 cycles) (Illumina, CA). The read length was set to 28 (read 1) + 8 (i7) + 0 (i5) + 91 (read 2) bases.
Bioinformatics
Processing of raw sequencing reads
Raw sequencing reads from the libraries were processed using 10× Genomics Cell Ranger v5.0.0 (https://support.10xgenomics.com/single-cell-gene-expression/software/pipelines/latest/what-is-cell-ranger) aligning reads to the mm10 build of the mouse genome. Default parameters were used for all samples. Raw sequencing reads were demultiplexed and mapped using Cell Ranger. Doublets were detected and removed using the Python package scrublet [44].
Data quality control, integration, and clustering
All processing steps were performed in Monocle3 v0.2.3.0 (R package) (https://cole-trapnell-lab.github.io/monocle3/docs/starting/) [45] for every sample. The threshold for minimum read count per cell was 500 reads. Thresholds for minimum gene number per cell were 39 (RA group) and 56 (O2 + NS group and O2 + HMGB1 group). All mitochondrial and sex chromosomal genes were removed from the analysis. Samples were assembled into a single monocle-cds object. Principal component analysis (PCA) and UMAP were used to display genetic distance and relatedness between cell populations. The preprocess_cds() function was used to normalize gene expression and calculate principal components (PC). The top 15 PCs were used for UMAP embedding. Cell types were annotated with R package SingleR v1.4.0. Default settings were used for parameters except for number of dimensions = 15 in preprocess_cds() and resolution = 10-5 in cluster_cells().
Differential expression analysis and functional analysis
The R package edgeR v3.34.0 with a standard workflow was used to identify differentially expressed genes under hyperoxia or BPD treatment [46]. The inclusion criterion was an expression rate > 10% of cells in the cluster. A false discovery rate (FDR) < 0.05 was considered significant.
Gene set enrichment analysis was performed in enrichR v2.1 (R package)[47]. (https://maayanlab.cloud/Enrichr/). Differentially expressed genes (FDR < 0.05 and |log10FC| > 1.5) were assessed for their enrichment of pathways in the WikiPathway_2019_Mouse reference.
Statistical analysis
Data are expressed as means ± SEM. Survival curves were compared using Kaplan-Meier analysis followed by a log-rank test. Between-group differences were compared using the Steel-Dwass test. All data were analyzed in JMP Pro 15 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA). Significance was set at P < 0.05.