The lung sections were prepared, processed, and stained with the assistance of the histology core, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences, University of North Dakota. Whole lungs were perfused and fixed with 10% neutral buffered formalin for 24 h at room temperature. Tissues were embedded in paraffin and sliced into 5-µm sections to reveal the maximum longitudinal view of the main intrapulmonary bronchus of the left lobe. The lung sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E), Periodic Acid-Schiff (PAS), and Masson-Trichrome (Abcam). H&E slides were coded, and the inflammation (H&E) in each lung section was evaluated by three pathologists in a blinded fashion. Scoring for each section was evaluated on a scale of 0 to 4 with increments of 0.5 (15 (link)). PAS slides were quantified by calculating a ratio of goblet cells to total epithelial cells in 100µm increments along the large airway. This was repeated ten times for each sample. Masson-Trichrome slides were quantified by measuring the thickness of the collagen matrix along ten randomly selected airways per slide. Representative histological images were acquired using a Nanozoomer 2.0HT Brightfield+Fluorescence Slide Scanning System (Hamamatsu Photonics, Japan) and analyzed using NDP.view2 Viewing Software (Hamamatsu) for H&E, PAS and Masson-Trichrome slides.