Airway hillocks are mysterious, flat-topped structures that were only recently identified within regular lung tissue, and their role in airway biology and pathology has previously been unknown.
Airway hillocks are mysterious, flat-topped structures that were only recently identified within regular lung tissue, and their role in airway biology and pathology has previously been unknown.
A research team from Tufts University School of Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital is now reporting evidence that hillocks and their stem cells are physiologically distinct from other cells within the lung and consist of a stratified outer layer of scale-like squamous cells that protect an underlying layer of rapidly expanding basal stem cells that are capable of restoring airway tissue after injury.
The results are published in a study appearing May 1 in the journal Nature.
« This study links previous research describing seemingly disparate phenomena to an unappreciated reservoir of injury-resistant cells, » says Brian Lin, GSB17, a research assistant professor of developmental, molecular and chemical biology at the School of Medicine, and a co-first, co-corresponding author on the paper.
« By doing a whole organ stain, structures popped out that aren’t easily seen when looking at the tissue in slices. »
Lin was among the group of scientists who, in 2019, first described the cells called hillocks, so named because of how they resemble mounds on the surface of lung tissue.
