A distal lung organoid model to study interstitial lung disease, viral infection and human lung development.

Organoid models have been one of the most exciting advancements in stem cell research of the past decade. Here we describe a strategy for directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells into distal lung organoids that can be used to model interstitial lung disease, viral infection and human endoderm and lung development. This protocol entails five stages that recapitulate lung development. hPSCs are sequentially specified to definitive endoderm, anterior foregut endoderm, ventral anterior foregut endoderm, lung bud organoids, and finally branching lung organoids that can be maintained, while progressively maturing up to the a stage consistent with the second trimester of human gestation, for more than 180 days. This protocol is conducted in defined, serum-free conditions and does not require lineage-specific reporters or cell purification. We also provide a protocol for the generation of single cell suspensions for single cell RNAseq, and for clearing and 3D light sheet fluorescence imaging. We performed single cell RNA sequencing analysis across four developmental stages (day25/40/60 and 80) of our organoid model. All organoids at each stage were dissociated to single cell suspension and resuspended to a concentration of 5000cells /ul for sequencing.