Abstract
Tissue damage and inflammation promote bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs) to differentiate into a variety of cell types in residing tissues. BMSCs can stably maintain their plasticity and are an ideal cell population for delivery of therapeutic genes to non-hematopoietic tissues. Using lacZ as a reporter gene, we demonstrated that the lung-specific human surfactant protein B (hSP-B) 1.5-kb promoter is able to deliver the lacZ gene into the lung of lysosomal acid lipase (LAL) gene-knockout (lal−/−) mice by β-galactosidase staining, flow cytometry and double immunofluorescence staining. Around 10–18% alveolar type II epithelial cells (AT II cells) exhibited positive lacZ gene expression after 8 weeks of BMSC injection in recipient lal−/− mice. The wild-type mice exhibited no expression after the same treatment. BMSCs from hSP-B 1.5-kb lacZ transgenic mice entered and repopulated in lal−/− bone marrow. The study supports a concept that pulmonary inflammation caused by LAL deficiency can trigger BMSC residing in lal−/− bone marrow, migrating into the lung and converting into residential AT II cells. The hSP-B 1.5 kb promoter is an ideal tool to deliver therapeutic genes into AT II cells through BMSCs to cure pulmonary inflammation-triggered diseases.
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This study was supported by National Institute of Health Grants HL-061803 and HL-067862 (C Yan and H Du). We thank Ms Marjorie Albrecht for critical reading of this manuscript.
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Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on Gene Therapy website (http://www.nature.com/gt)
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Yan, C., Lian, X., Dai, Y. et al. Gene delivery by the hSP-B promoter to lung alveolar type II epithelial cells in LAL-knockout mice through bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells. Gene Ther 14, 1461–1470 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.gt.3303006
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.gt.3303006
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