Transcriptome in alveolar epithelial type II-like cells differentiated from human lung progenitor cells

Resident stem/progenitor cells in lungs are important for tissue homeostasis and repair. We isolated human lung progenitor cells and named alveolar epithelial progenitor cells (AEPCs)(Fujino N, et al. 2011. Lab Invest. 91:363). AEPCs have phenotypes of both alveolar epithelial type II (ATII) cells and mesenchymal stem cells. AEPCs had the potential to generate ATII-like cells in vitro. ATII-like cells derived from AEPCs expressed protein and mRNA of pulmonary surfactant, and displayed lamellar bodies containing the surfactants. However, it has not been evaluated whether global gene expression of the ATII-like cells from AEPCs was similar to that of mature ATII cells isolated from human lung tissues. This study demonstrated gene expression profiles of ATII-like cells from AEPCs. In addition, transcriptomes in AEPCs and mature ATII cells were deposited in the GEO website (GSE21095 and GSE29133, respectively). We isolated AEPCs from tissue samples obtained from patients who underwent lung resection at Department of Thoracic Surgery, Tohoku University Hospital. We induced differentiation of AEPCs to ATII-like cells on extracellular matrix with medium containing KGF, cAMP and IBMX, as previously described (Fujino N, et al. 2011. Lab Invest. 91:363). We profiled the gene expression in three different batches of the ATII-like cells. We extracted total RNA from the differentiated cells. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee at Tohoku University School of Medicine. All subjects gave informed consent.