Figure 1

The identification and isolation of epithelial, endothelial and mesenchymal cells from mouse lungs. (A) A fluorescence-activated cell sorting strategy. Single lung cells were stained with antibodies against EpCAM, VE-cadherin and CD45. 7-AAD was used for dead cell exclusion. Epithelial, endothelial and mesenchymal cells are identified as CD45^- EpCAM⁺ VE-cadherin^- cells, CD45^- EpCAM^- VE-cadherin⁺ cells and CD45^- EpCAM^- VE-cadherin^- cells, respectively. (B) The expression of mRNAs in isolated lung epithelial (Ep), mesenchymal (Me) and endothelial (En) cells from untreated mice. The mean and SEM of relative mRNA expression are shown (n = 6). The values relative to those of epithelial cells are presented for E-cadherin and SPC. For VE-cadherin, values relative to those of endothelial cells are presented. For vimentin, ZEB1 and ZEB2, values relative to those of mesenchymal cells are presented. The data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance with a post hoc test (Scheffé’s test). * p < 0.05 versus lung epithelial cells. † p < 0.05 versus lung mesenchymal cells.