After the treatment period, treated cells or rat lung tissues were subjected to RNA isolation using RNAiso plus as described earlier (Andugulapati et al. 2020 (link)). Briefly, RNA was isolated using the TRIzol–chloroform method and total RNA was quantified using nano-drop. Isolated RNA (1 μg) was subjected to cDNA synthesis using a prime script cDNA synthesis kit as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Specified primers [IL-6, IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-8, CCL2, CCL3, CCL7, CXCL1, alveolar pulmonary stretch (amphiregulin), CC16, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1), intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM-1), and reference markers (GAPDH, β2M, and β-actin)] were designed using Primer-3 software and the respective sequences are shown in Table S1. RT-qPCR was carried out using SYBR green mix and the differences in mRNA expression of the specified genes were calculated as the fold change using the formula 2-ΔΔct and data were expressed as mean ± SEM.