Stem cells converted to functional lung cells; could impact modeling, drug screening, transplantation

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.2754.html

Columbia professor Hans-Willem Snoeck and colleagues have transformed human stem cells into functional lung and airway cells.  This has significant potential for modeling lung disease, screening drugs, studying human lung development, and, ultimately, generating lung tissue for transplantation.

The research builds on Dr. Snoeck’s 2011 discovery of a set of chemical factors that can turn human embryonic stem  cells or human induced pluripotent stem cells into anterior foregut endoderm—precursors of lung and airway cells. Human iPS cells closely resemble human ES cells but are generated from skin cells, by coaxing them into taking a developmental step backwards. Human iPS cells can then be stimulated to differentiate into specialized cells—offering researchers an alternative to human ES cells.

The team have found new factors that can complete the transformation of human ES or iPS cells into functional lung epithelial cells. The resultant cells were found to express markers of at least six types of lung and airway epithelial cells, particularly markers of type 2 alveolar epithelial cells. Type 2 cells are important because they produce surfactant, a substance critical to maintain the lung alveoli, where gas exchange takes place; they also participate in repair of the lung after injury and damage.

The findings have implications for the study of several lung diseases, including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, in which type 2 alveolar epithelial cells are thought to play a central role.


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