Mouse lung cells in 7 days without stem cells, Nagoya University, Keio University, etc.
Research groups at Nagoya University, Keio University, and other institutions have succeeded in generating lung cells directly from mouse fibroblasts. The method of changing stem cells such as iPS cells to another cell without going through it is called “direct reprogramming”. As a new technology that produces lung cells in a short period of about 7 days, it is expected to be applied to regenerative medicine.
Lung diseases such as interstitial pneumonia, in which lung cells harden, are considered difficult to treat, and medical technology to regenerate damaged lungs has attracted attention. However, iPS cells are expensive to produce and take a long time to produce. For this reason, research is progressing to add specific genes to skin cells and change them to other cells without using iPS cells.
A group led by Professor Makoto Ishii of Nagoya University used a virus to introduce four types of transcription factors involved in lung development into embryonic fibroblasts of mice. In about 7 days, we were able to produce alveolar epithelial-like cells, which make up the alveoli. By subculture, they were able to increase the number of days by more than 180 days.
When the alveolar epithelial-like cells were transplanted into the lungs of mice, they were engrafted into the alveoli region. In the future, we will continue research on the production of lung cells in human cells. We aim to apply this technology to the development of therapeutic methods for intractable lung diseases.