Peiwen Cai

3 weeks ago | nature.com | Brian Lin |Atharva Bhagwat |Isha Monga |Ke Xu |Danielle Dionne |Peiwen Cai | +5 more

AbstractHuman airways contain specialized rare epithelial cells including CFTR-rich ionocytes that regulate airway surface physiology and chemosensory tuft cells that produce asthma-associated inflammatory mediators. Here, using a lung cell atlas of 311,748 single cell RNA-Seq profiles, we identify 687 ionocytes (0.45%). In contrast to prior reports claiming a lack of ionocytes in the small airways, we demonstrate that ionocytes are present in small and large airways in similar proportions.