Hypercapnia impairs fibroblast cell activity and promotes cellular differentiation

Hypercapnia has deleterious effects on cell function, including inhibition of alveolar epithelial cells (AEC) and fibroblast proliferation without causing cell death. Classical studies and lineage-trace models demonstrated that fibroblast cells can affect the structurally and functionally distinct alveolar type 1 cells (AT1) and alveolar type 2 cells. This fibroblast cells reprogramming depends on certain signaling pathways that plays critical roles in tissue development and homeostasis throughout the organism lifespan. Transcriptomic profiles of flow sorted PDGFR alpha+ fibroblast cells from C57Bl/6 mice exposed to 10% CO2 undernormoxic conditions for 0, and 10 days were generated by standard illumina RNA-Seq protocols.