Irreversible destruction of bronchi and alveoli can lead to multiple incurable lung diseases. Identifying lung stem/progenitor cells with regenerative capacity and utilizing them to reconstruct functional tissue is on...Irreversible destruction of bronchi and alveoli can lead to multiple incurable lung diseases. Identifying lung stem/progenitor cells with regenerative capacity and utilizing them to reconstruct functional tissue is one of the biggest hopes to reverse the damage and cure such diseases. Here we showed that a rare population of SOX9^+ basal cells (BCs) located at airway epithelium rugae can regenerate adult human lung. Human SOX9^+ BCs can be readily isolated by bronchoscopic brushing and indefinitely expanded in feeder-free condition. Expanded human SOX9^+ BCs can give rise to alveolar and bronchiolar epithelium after being transplanted into injured mouse lung, with air-blood exchange system reconstructed and recipient's lung function improved. Manipulation of lung microenvironment with Pirfenidone to suppress TGF-β signaling could further boost the transplantation efficiency. Moreover, we conducted the first autologous SOX9^+ BCs transplantation clinical trial in two bronchiectasis patients. Lung tissue repair and pulmonary function enhancement was observed in patients 3-12 months after cell transplantation. Alto- gether our current work indicated that functional adult human lung structure can be reconstituted by orthotopic transplantation of tissue-specific stem/progenitor cells, which could be translated into a mature regenerative therapeutic strategy in near future.展开更多
Bionics provides a positive and beneficial impact on the development of various materials and systems, which has been widely used in energy storage, heat transfer enhancement, and solar thermochemical reactions. In th...Bionics provides a positive and beneficial impact on the development of various materials and systems, which has been widely used in energy storage, heat transfer enhancement, and solar thermochemical reactions. In this paper, the idea of heat storage unit with biomimetic alveoli structure is proposed and introduced to increase the heat transfer area and improve the thermal performance of the packed-bed latent heat thermal energy storage(LHTES) system. The effects of heat storage unit structure on temperature distribution, liquid fraction, thermal storage capacity, and other performance indexes of the conventional model and biomimetic model are analyzed. The numerical results indicate that the biomimetic alveoli structure can improve the thermal response of heat storage unit, increase the specific surface area, and achieve a faster heat storage process of the packed-bed compared with the conventional structure. Among various existing models, the double-cell model has a significant improvement.Compared with the conventional model, the maximum increase of liquid fraction and charging efficiency are 9.8% and 6.4%,respectively. This study can provide references to optimize packed-bed LHTES and improve its thermal performance under practical conditions.展开更多
文摘Irreversible destruction of bronchi and alveoli can lead to multiple incurable lung diseases. Identifying lung stem/progenitor cells with regenerative capacity and utilizing them to reconstruct functional tissue is one of the biggest hopes to reverse the damage and cure such diseases. Here we showed that a rare population of SOX9^+ basal cells (BCs) located at airway epithelium rugae can regenerate adult human lung. Human SOX9^+ BCs can be readily isolated by bronchoscopic brushing and indefinitely expanded in feeder-free condition. Expanded human SOX9^+ BCs can give rise to alveolar and bronchiolar epithelium after being transplanted into injured mouse lung, with air-blood exchange system reconstructed and recipient's lung function improved. Manipulation of lung microenvironment with Pirfenidone to suppress TGF-β signaling could further boost the transplantation efficiency. Moreover, we conducted the first autologous SOX9^+ BCs transplantation clinical trial in two bronchiectasis patients. Lung tissue repair and pulmonary function enhancement was observed in patients 3-12 months after cell transplantation. Alto- gether our current work indicated that functional adult human lung structure can be reconstituted by orthotopic transplantation of tissue-specific stem/progenitor cells, which could be translated into a mature regenerative therapeutic strategy in near future.
基金supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFA0702300)the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52006094 and 52076064)the Taishan Scholars of Shandong Province (Grant No. tsqn201812105)。
文摘Bionics provides a positive and beneficial impact on the development of various materials and systems, which has been widely used in energy storage, heat transfer enhancement, and solar thermochemical reactions. In this paper, the idea of heat storage unit with biomimetic alveoli structure is proposed and introduced to increase the heat transfer area and improve the thermal performance of the packed-bed latent heat thermal energy storage(LHTES) system. The effects of heat storage unit structure on temperature distribution, liquid fraction, thermal storage capacity, and other performance indexes of the conventional model and biomimetic model are analyzed. The numerical results indicate that the biomimetic alveoli structure can improve the thermal response of heat storage unit, increase the specific surface area, and achieve a faster heat storage process of the packed-bed compared with the conventional structure. Among various existing models, the double-cell model has a significant improvement.Compared with the conventional model, the maximum increase of liquid fraction and charging efficiency are 9.8% and 6.4%,respectively. This study can provide references to optimize packed-bed LHTES and improve its thermal performance under practical conditions.