The primary lung bud originates from the foregut and develops into the bronchial tree by repetitive branching and outgrowing of the airway. The Sry related HMG box protein Sox2 is expressed in a cyclic manner during initiation and branching morphogenesis of the lung. It is highly expressed in non-branching regions and absent from branching regions, suggesting that downregulation of Sox2 is mandatory for airway epithelium to respond to branch inducing signals. Therefore, we developed transgenic mice that express a doxycycline inducible Sox2 in the airway epithelium. Continuous expression of Sox2 hampers the branching process resulting in a severe reduction of the number of airways. In addition, the bronchioli transiently go over into enlarged, alveolar-like airspaces, a pathology described as bronchiolization of alveoli. Furthermore, a substantial increase was observed of cGRP positive neuroendocrine cells and Delta Np63 isoform expressing (pre-) basal cells, which are both committed precursor-like cells. Thus, Sox2 prevents airways from branching and prematurely drives cells into committed progenitors, apparently rendering these committed progenitors unresponsive to branch inducing signals. However, Sox2 overexpression does not lead to a complete abrogation of the epithelial differentiation program.
Pubmed ID: 18374910 RIS Download
Publication data is provided by the National Library of Medicine ® and PubMed ®. Data is retrieved from PubMed ® on a weekly schedule. For terms and conditions see the National Library of Medicine Terms and Conditions.
Affymetrix has recently released a new software for the acquisition, management, and analysis of gene expression data. The new GeneChip Operating Software (GCOS) platform enables researchers to perform gene expression, SNP mapping and resequencing analysis with integrated data management and scalable client server configurations. * Compatible with additional Affymetrix analysis software such as Data Mining Tool (DMT) and GeneChip DNA Analysis Software (GDAS) * Supports Gene Expression, Resequencing and Genotyping Applications * Baseline Comparison Analysis Input: Affymetrix .DAT file Output: Affymetrix files (.CEL, .CHP, .RPT, .EXP, .TXT) Availability: The Core Facility has a copy of GCOS, as well as an older version of the Affymetrix software, Microarray Suite (MAS), available for use upon request.
View all literature mentions