Abstract
Most chronic and acute lung diseases have no cure, leaving lung transplantation as the only option. Recent work has improved our understanding of the endogenous regenerative capacity of the lung and has helped identification of different progenitor cell populations, as well as exploration into inducing endogenous regeneration through pharmaceutical or biological therapies. Additionally, alternative approaches that aim at replacing lung progenitor cells and their progeny through cell therapy, or whole lung tissue through bioengineering approaches, have gained increasing attention. Although impressive progress has been made, efforts at regenerating functional lung tissue are still ineffective. Chronic and acute lung diseases are most prevalent in the elderly and alterations in progenitor cells with ageing, along with an increased inflammatory milieu, present major roadblocks for regeneration. Multiple cellular mechanisms, such as cellular senescence and mitochondrial dysfunction, are aberrantly regulated in the aged and diseased lung, which impairs regeneration. Existing as well as new human in vitro models are being developed, improved and adapted in order to study potential mechanisms of lung regeneration in different contexts. This review summarises recent advances in understanding endogenous as well as exogenous regeneration and the development of in vitro models for studying regenerative mechanisms.
Abstract
Once thought to be a quiescent organ, we now know the lung demonstrates an incredible capacity for regeneration in response to injuries. However, there is also a growing appreciation for impairments in these processes such as ageing and the diseased niche. https://bit.ly/3hJgAAS
Footnotes
Provenance: Commissioned article, peer reviewed.
Conflict of interest: M.C. Melo-Narváez has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: J. Stegmayr has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: D.E. Wagner reports grants from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Swedish Research Council, during the conduct of the study; and personal fees from Boehringer Ingelheim, outside the submitted work. In addition, D.E. Wagner has a patent WO2014169111A1 pending.
Conflict of interest: M. Lehmann reports grants from The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), during the conduct of the study.
Support statement: Funding was received from Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung (Grant “Lung aging in a dish”), the Swedish Research Council and Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse. Funding information for this article has been deposited with the Crossref Funder Registry.
- Received July 9, 2020.
- Accepted August 20, 2020.
- Copyright ©ERS 2020.
This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.