Bleomycin-induced skin fibrosis

Male C57BL/6 mice were purchased from The Charles River. All of the experiments were performed under the guidelines of the Boston University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (protocol AN-15037). Dimethyl fumarate (Sigma Aldrich) IP injections were performed daily with a dose of 90 mg/kg in vehicle: 10% (2-Hydroxypropyl)-β-cyclodextrin (Sigma Aldrich) in sterile PBS. Bleomycin (Hospira, Inc., Lake Forest, IL) or PBS was delivered in Alzet osmotic miniature pumps (model 1007D) at a dose of 1.8 unit/mouse and mice were sacrificed after 4 weeks. Total mouse skin RNA was isolated by using the RNeasy Fibrous Tissue Mini Kit (Qiagen, Valencia, CA).