The use of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells has allowed for the in vitro production of many specialized cell types, including those that make up the lung and airways. Due to their critical importance in human health and the number of diseases that affect them, lung tissues and their developmental precursors are of particular interest in the medical community, but have been difficult to study in realistic in vitro models. This technology provides methods for generating, isolating and culturing lung cells. The methods described here are capable of producing both fully differentiated tissues, such as Type II alveolar (AT II) cells, as well as 3-dimensional populations of lung progenitor cells in the form of anterior foregut spheres. Isolation and purification of these cells may provide researchers with tools to study lung development and disease in vitro, as well as providing a system for drug discovery.
In addition to providing methods for 3-dimensional culture of a variety of lung tissue subtypes, this technology provides the first method capable of isolating and purifying AT II cells at high yield from differentiated lung tissue. Combining this technology with iPS methods has a variety of possible applications, including patient-specific replacement of AT II cells in lung damage, modeling human lung cancers and viral respiratory infection, and drug screening for compounds that affect lung function. This technology is equally applicable for laboratory research on vascular related diseases such as pulmonary and cystic fibrosis, and can be adapted further for the modeling and study of other pulmonary diseases.
The specificity of this generation and isolation method has been validated using flow cytometry, in vitro functional studies, and the expression of lung tissue subtype-specific markers.
Patent Pending (WO2014018691A1)
Tech Ventures Reference: IR CU13336, CU3019, CU13340