63 Abnormal collagen structure resulting from lack of contribution of collagen type XIV in lungs of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis Figure 2: Example images of COL14A1 staining in whole tissue, lung parenchyma, and airways in A) non-IPF and B) IPF lung samples. Scale bars for intact images: 250 μm, for first level zoomin: 100 μm and for second level zoom-in: 50 μm. IPF: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. DISCUSSION Collectively, our results show proportionally lower COL14 protein expression relative to other ECM components that make up lung tissue in patients with IPF compared to both ex-smoker and never-smoker non-IPF controls. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of protein level changes related to spatial location of COL14 in human lung tissue in IPF. In this study, we examined the relative proportion of COL14 to tissue present in each sample and not the absolute amount, therefore it is possible that there may be an overall increase in the amount of COL14 in IPF lung tissues. As the total amount of tissue present in IPF lung sections is higher than in controls, it is conceivable there is an increase in absolute amount of COL14, while the proportion of COL14 in comparison to other ECM components is reduced. A previous report of 3
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