Epithelial cell-extracellular matrix interactions and stem cells in airway epithelial regeneration.

In healthy subjects, the respiratory epithelium forms a continuous lining to the airways and to the environment, and plays a unique role as a barrier against external deleterious agents to protect the airways from the insults. In respiratory diseases such as cystic fibrosis (CF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis, or asthma, the airway epithelium is frequently remodeled and injured, leading to the impairment of its defense functions. The rapid restoration of the epithelial barrier is crucial for these patients. The complete regeneration of the airway epithelium is a complex phenomenon, including not only the epithelial wound repair but also the epithelial differentiation to reconstitute a fully well differentiated and functional epithelium. The regeneration implies two partners: the epithelial stem/progenitor cells and factors able to regulate this process. Among these factors, epithelial cells-extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions play a crucial role. The secretion of a provisional ECM, the cell-ECM relationships through epithelial receptors, and the remodeling of the ECM by proteases (mainly matrix metalloproteinases) contribute not only to airway epithelial repair by modulating epithelial cell migration and proliferation, but also to the differentiation of repairing cells leading to the complete restoration of the wounded epithelium. A better characterization of resident stem cells and of effectors of the regeneration process is an essential prerequisite to propose new regenerative therapeutics to patients suffering from infectious/inflammatory respiratory diseases.

A critical assessment of Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation as a tool for pathogenicity gene discovery in the phytopathogenic fungus Leptosphaeria maculans.

We evaluated the usefulness and robustness of Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation (ATMT) as a high-throughput transformation tool for pathogenicity gene discovery in the filamentous phytopathogen Leptosphaeria maculans. Thermal asymmetric interlaced polymerase chain reaction allowed us to amplify the left border (LB) flanking sequence in 135 of 400 transformants analysed, and indicated a high level of preservation of the T-DNA LB. In addition, T-DNA preferentially integrated as a single copy in gene-rich regions of the fungal genome, with a probable bias towards intergenic and/or regulatory regions. A total of 53 transformants out of 1388 (3.8%) showed reproducible pathogenicity defects when inoculated on cotyledons of Brassica napus, with diverse altered phenotypes. Co-segregation of the altered phenotype with the T-DNA integration was observed for 6 of 12 transformants crossed. If extrapolated to the whole collection, this indicates that 1.9% of the collection actually corresponds to tagged pathogenicity mutants. The preferential insertion into gene-rich regions along with the high ratio of tagged mutants renders ATMT a tool of choice for large-scale gene discovery in L. maculans.