Interestingly, the expression of revealed key upregulated DEGs reached a maximum in the acute phase of inflammation, whereas pulmonary fibrosis development was accompanied by decrease in their expression either to significantly lesser values (C3, Ccl2, Fn1, Igf1, Muc5b, Timp1) or to the level of healthy controls (C3ar1, Muc5ac, Spp1) (Figure 5A). Here, MUC5AC is linked to pulmonary fibrosis.