Description
The pathology of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and the majority of lung cancers involve the small airway epithelium (SAE), the single continuous layer of cells lining the airways ?6th generations. The basal cells (BC) are the stem/progenitor cells of the SAE, responsible for the differentiation into intermediate cells and ciliated, club and mucous differentiated cells. To facilitate the study of the biology of the human SAE in health and disease, we immortalized and characterized a normal human SAE basal cell line.