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CEBPA restricts alveolar type 2 cell plasticity during development and injury-repair [1]

ABSTRACT: Cell plasticity theoretically extends to all possible cell types, but naturally decreases as cells differentiate, whereas injury-repair re-engages the developmental plasticity. Here we show that the lung alveolar type 2 (AT2)-specific transcription factor (TF), CEBPA, restricts AT2 cell plasticity in the mouse lung. AT2 cells undergo transcriptional and epigenetic maturation postnatally. Without CEBPA, both neonatal and mature AT2 cells reduce the AT2 program, but only the former reactivate the SOX9 progenitor program. Sendai virus infection bestows mature AT2 cells with neonatal plasticity where Cebpa mutant, but not wild type, AT2 cells express SOX9, as well as more readily proliferate and form KRT8/CLDN4+ transitional cells. CEBPA promotes the AT2 program by recruiting the lung lineage TF NKX2-1. The temporal change in CEBPA-dependent plasticity reflects AT2 cell developmental history. The ontogeny of AT2 cell plasticity and its transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms have implications in lung regeneration and cancer.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE247130 | GEO | 2024/04/18

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Alveoli are thin-walled sacs that serve as the gas exchange units of the lung. They are affected in devastating lung diseases including COPD, Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, and the major form (adenocarcinoma) of lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer deaths. The alveolar epithelium is composed of two morphologically distinct cell types: alveolar type (AT) 1 cells, exquisitely thin cells across which oxygen diffuses to reach the blood, and AT2 cells, specialized surfactant-secreting cells. Classical studies suggested that AT1 cells arise from AT2 cells during development and following injury, but more recent studies suggest other sources. Here we use histological and marker analysis, lineage tracing, and clonal analysis in mice to identify alveolar progenitor and stem cells and map their locations and potential in vivo. The results show that AT1 and AT2 cells arise independently during development from a bipotential progenitor. After birth, new AT1 cells derive from rare, long-lived, self-renewing AT2 cells, each producing a slowly expanding clonal focus of regenerated alveoli contiguous with the founder AT2 cell. This stem cell function of AT2 cells is broadly activated by diffuse AT1 cell injury, and AT2 self-renewal can be induced in vitro by EGF ligands and permanently activated in vivo by AT2 cell-specific targeting of the oncogenic KrasG12D allele, efficiently transforming AT2 cells into monoclonal adenomatous tumors that rapidly enlarge and prove fatal. Thus, there is a developmental switch in alveolar progenitor cells after birth, when mature AT2 cells function as facultative stem cells that contribute to local alveolar renewal, repair, and cancer. We propose that short-range signals from dying AT1 cells regulate AT2 stem cell activity: a signal transduced by EGFR-KRAS controls AT2 self-renewal and is hijacked during oncogenic transformation, and a separate signal controls reprogramming to AT1 cell fate. To compare expression between ATII and E18 BP populations, RNA was isolated from either population purified by FACS. Two populations are analyzed with 3 biological replicates per population.

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CEBPA restricts alveolar type 2 cell plasticity during development and injury-repair [1]

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