The development of methods to transform embryonic stem cells into lung tissue paves the way for models of lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis.
Darrell Kotton at Boston University in Massachusetts and his team used a series of proteins to turn mouse embryonic stem cells into lung progenitor cells. When implanted into a mouse lung that had been removed from the animal and stripped of its cells, the progenitors formed structures similar to alveoli, sacs in the lungs where gas exchange occurs. The cells also expressed proteins characteristic of specialized lung cells.
Jayaraj Rajagopal at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and his group took the work a step further, reprogramming skin cells from a patient with cystic fibrosis into stem cells and then converting these into lung progenitors. When implanted underneath the skin of mice, the progenitors formed different kinds of specialized lung cells, including those lining the airway that are disturbed in cystic fibrosis.
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Recipes for making lung cells. Nature 484, 290–291 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/484290d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/484290d
