Unique stem cell trajectory in lungs damaged by Covid-19, pulmonary fibrosis: Study
CALIFRONIA: A research has found that severe lung injuries can trigger lung stem cells to undergo abnormal differentiation. The study has been published in the 'Nature Cell Biology Journal'. UCSF researchers Jaymin Kathiriya, PhD, Chaoqun Wang, PhD, Drs. Kathiriya and Wang, supervised by Hal Chapman, MD, and Tien Peng, MD, respectively, utilized stem cell organoid models to uncover a novel stem cell pathway that is seen in severely injured lungs from Covid-19 and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patients. This study offered a roadmap to understand how severely injured lungs can remodel and scar and provided a potential pathway to reverse the remodelling by targeting the abnormal stem cells differentiation. It has been previously accepted that the regenerative capacity of resident stem cells of the alveolus (AEC2s), operated similarly in mice and humans. The researchers unexpectedly found that human AEC2s (hAEC2s), unlike mouse AEC2s, robustly transdifferentiate into functional...