Late chick lung development

Type IV collagen is the main component of the basement membrane which gives strength to the blood-gas barrier. In avians the formation of the blood-gas barrier happens rapidly and before hatching. We have performed a microarray expression analysis in late chick lung development and found that COL4A1 and COL4A2 were among the most significantly upregulated genes during the formation of the avian blood-gas barrier. Our study showed that type IV collagen and therefore the basement membrane play fundamental roles in coordinating alveolar morphogenesis. Four developmental stages of chick lung maturation (E14, E15, E16, E18). Three biological replicates per time point.