Rat lungs show a biphasic formation of new alveoli during postnatal development.

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_2676482DBF7C
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Rat lungs show a biphasic formation of new alveoli during postnatal development.
Journal
Journal of Applied Physiology (bethesda, Md. : 1985)
Author(s)
Tschanz S.A., Salm L.A., Roth-Kleiner M., Barré S.F., Burri P.H., Schittny J.C.
ISSN
1522-1601 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
0161-7567
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2014
Volume
117
Number
1
Pages
89-95
Language
english
Abstract
Roughly 90% of the gas-exchange surface is formed by alveolarization of the lungs. To the best of our knowledge, the formation of new alveoli has been followed in rats only by means of morphological description or interpretation of semiquantitative data until now. Therefore, we estimated the number of alveoli in rat lungs between postnatal days 4 and 60 by unambiguously counting the alveolar openings. We observed a bulk formation of new alveoli between days 4 and 21 (17.4 times increase from 0.8 to 14.3 millions) and a second phase of continued alveolarization between days 21 and 60 (1.3 times increase to 19.3 million). The (number weighted) mean volume of the alveoli decreases during the phase of bulk alveolarization from ∼593,000 μm(3) at day 4 to ∼141,000 μm(3) at day 21, but increases again to ∼298,000 μm(3) at day 60. We conclude that the "bulk alveolarization" correlates with the mechanism of classical alveolarization (alveolarization before the microvascular maturation is completed) and that the "continued alveolarization" follows three proposed mechanisms of late alveolarization (alveolarization after microvascular maturation). The biphasic pattern is more evident for the increase in alveolar number than for the formation of new alveolar septa (estimated as the length of the free septal edge). Furthermore, a striking negative correlation between the estimated alveolar size and published data on retention of nanoparticles was detected.
Pubmed
Create date
09/09/2014 10:19
Last modification date
20/08/2019 14:05
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