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Airspaces of the human respiratory system can be broadly divided into conducting and respiratory zones that mediate transport of gasses and their subsequent exchange across the epithelial-microvascular barrier, respectively. The conducting airways include trachea, bronchi, bronchioles and terminal bronchioles, whereas respiratory air spaces include respiratory bronchioles, alveolar ducts and alveoli. The epithelial lining of these airspaces changes in composition along the proximo-distal axis to accommodate the unique requirements of each functionally distinct zone. The pseudostratified epithelium of tracheo-bronchial airways is composed of three major cell types, basal, secretory and ciliated, in addition to the less abundant cell types including brush, neuroendocrine and ionocyte1,2,3. Bronchiolar airways harbor morphologically similar epithelial cell types, although there are distinctions in their abundance and functional properties. For example, basal cells are less abundant within bronchiolar airways, and secretory cells include a greater proportion of club cells versus serous and goblet cells that predominate in tracheo-bronchial airways.Ā Epithelial cells of the respiratory zone include a poorly defined cuboidal cell type in respiratory bronchioles, in addition to alveolar type I (ATI) and type II (ATII) cells of alveolar ducts and alveoli1,4.Ā
The identity of epithelial stem and progenitor cell types that contribute to the maintenance and renewal of epithelia in each zone are incompletely described and largely inferred from studies in animal models5,6,7,8. Studies in mice have shown that either basal cells Ā of pseudostratified airways, or club cells of bronchiolar airways or ATII cells of the alveolar epithelium, serve as epithelial stem cells based upon capacity for unlimited self-renewal and multipotent differentiation7,9,10,11,12. Despite the inability to perform genetic lineage tracing studies to assess stemness of human lung epithelial cell types, the availability of organoid-based culture models to assess the functional potential of epithelial stem and progenitor cells provideĀ a tool for comparative studies between mouse and human13,14,15,16,17.
We describe methods for the isolation of epithelial cell types from different regions of the human lung and their culture using a 3D organoid system to recapitulate the regional cell types.Ā Similar methods have been developed for the functional analysis and disease modeling of epithelial cells from other organ systems18,19,20,21. These methods provide a platform for the identification of regional epithelial progenitor cells, to perform mechanistic studies investigating their regulation and microenvironment, and to enable disease modeling and drug discovery. Even though studies of lung epithelial progenitor cells performed in animal models can benefit from the analysis, either in vivo or in vitro, insights into the identity of human lung epithelial progenitor cells have been largely dependent upon extrapolation from model organisms. As such, these methods provide a bridge to relate the identity and behavior of human lung epithelial cell types with their studies investigating regulation of stem/progenitor cells.Ā