RESEARCH ARTICLE Transcriptional landscape of pulmonary lymphatic endothelial cells during fetal gestation 1,2 3 1 1,4 Timothy A. Norman, Jr.ID *, Adam C. Gower , Felicia Chen , Alan Fine 1 Pulmonary Center, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 2 Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 3 Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 4 Boston Veteran's Hospital, West Roxbury, a1111111111 Massachusetts, United States of America a1111111111 a1111111111 *
[email protected] a1111111111 a1111111111 Abstract The genetic programs responsible for pulmonary lymphatic maturation prior to birth are not known. To address this gap in knowledge, we developed a novel cell sorting strategy to col- OPEN ACCESS lect fetal pulmonary lymphatic endothelial cells (PLECs) for global transcriptional profiling. Citation: Norman TA, Jr., Gower AC, Chen F, Fine A We identified PLECs based on their unique cell surface immunophenotype (CD31+/Vegfr3 (2019) Transcriptional landscape of pulmonary lymphatic endothelial cells during fetal gestation. +/Lyve1+/Pdpn+) and isolated them from murine lungs during late gestation (E16.5, E17.5, PLoS ONE 14(5): e0216795. https://doi.org/ E18.5). Gene expression profiling was performed using whole-genome microarrays, and 10.1371/journal.pone.0216795 1,281 genes were significantly differentially expressed with respect to time (FDR q < 0.05) Editor: Vladimir V. Kalinichenko, Cincinnati and grouped into six clusters. Two clusters containing a total of 493 genes strongly upregu- Children's Hospital Medical Center, UNITED lated at E18.5 were significantly enriched in genes with functional annotations correspond- STATES ing to innate immune response, positive regulation of angiogenesis, complement & Received: October 19, 2018 coagulation cascade, ECM/cell-adhesion, and lipid metabolism.