- RESEARCH BRIEFINGS
Alveolar type 2 (AT2) cells are the stem cells of the lung’s air sacs and are responsible for maintaining alveolar structure and gas exchange. A study that tracked AT2 cells shows that, after injury to the airway, they can also migrate between lung compartments and become bronchiolar cells to help repair damaged airways.
This is a summary of: Liu, K. et al. Alveolar stem cells transdifferentiate to drive bronchiolar regeneration. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11127-w (2026).
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-03085-0
‘Expert opinion’ is published under a CC BY 4.0 licence; Figure 1 is published under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.
References
Kim, C. F. B. et al. Cell 121, 823–835 (2005).
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Liu, Q. et al. Nature Genet. 51, 728–738 (2019).
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Kathiriya, J. J., Brumwell, A. N., Jackson, J. R., Tang, X. & Chapman, H. A. Cell Stem Cell 26, 346–358 (2020).
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Liu, K. et al. Cell 187, 2428–2445 (2024).
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Barkauskas, C. E. et al. J. Clin. Invest. 123, 3025–3036 (2013).
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