Abstract
Surfactant protein B (SFTPB) deficiency is a fatal disease affecting newborn infants. Surfactant is produced by alveolar type II cells which can be differentiated in vitro from patient specific induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived lung organoids. Here we show the differentiation of patient specific iPSCs derived from a patient with SFTPB deficiency into lung organoids with mesenchymal and epithelial cell populations from both the proximal and distal portions of the human lung. We alter the deficiency by infecting the SFTPB deficient iPSCs with a lentivirus carrying the wild type SFTPB gene. After differentiating the mutant and corrected cells into lung organoids, we show expression of SFTPB mRNA during endodermal and organoid differentiation but the protein product only after organoid differentiation. We also show the presence of normal lamellar bodies and the secretion of surfactant into the cell culture medium in the organoids of lentiviral infected cells. These findings suggest that a lethal lung disease can be targeted and corrected in a human lung organoid model in vitro.
We identified an alternatively-spliced surfactant protein B (SP-B) mRNA from normal human lung with a 12 nt deletion at the beginning of exon 8. This deletion causes a loss of four amino acids in the SP-B precursor protein. Sequence comparison of the 3′ splice sites reveals only one difference in the frequency of U/C in the 11 predominantly-pyrimidine nucleotide tract, 73% for the normal and 45% for the alternatively-spliced SP-B mRNA (77-99% for the consensus sequence). Analysis of SP-B mRNA in lung indicates that the abundance of the alternatively-spliced form is very low and varies among individuals. Although the relative abundance of the deletion form of SP-B mRNA remains constant among normal lungs, it is found with relatively higher abundance in the lungs of some individuals with diseases such as congenital alveolar proteinosis, respiratory distress syndrome, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, alveolar capillary dysplasia and hypophosphatasia. This observation points to the possibility that the alternative splicing is a potential regulatory mechanism of SP-B and may play a role in the pathogenesis of disease under certain circumstances.
Leptospira Immunoglobulin-Like Protein B Interacts with the 20th Exon of Human Tropoelastin Contributing to Leptospiral Adhesion to Human Lung Cells