Smooth-muscle-cell differentiation in airways

This experiment was performed in order to investigate the difference in the gene expression pattern between differentiated airway/vascular smooth muscle cells and progenitors for alveolar myofibroblasts in embryonic lung. To answer this question, we genetically labeled Smooth muscle actin-expressing cells using Sma-Cre-ERT2 crossed with Tomato Cre-reporter line. This line allows to label both airway/vascular smooth muscle cells (high SMA expression) and progenitors for alveolar myofibroblasts (low SMA expression). Mice were treated with tamoxifen at embryonic day E15.5 and cells from embryonic lungs were collected at E18.5. Mice used in this study were offspring from RjOrl:SWISS (CD1) [mother] x STOCK Tg (Acta2-cre/ERT2)12Pcn Gt(ROSA)26Sortm9(CAG-tdTomato)Hze/sbel (Acta2-CreERT2; tdTomatoflox) [father] RNA from primary isolated mesenchymal cells from mouse lung was SPIA amplified and hybridized on Agilent 80k arrays (three groups, isolated from 3 mice each = 9 samples in total)