A putative sub 10 kda basement membrane activity required for lung alveolar formation in vitro. Matter, Michelle L., and Gordon W. Laurie. Department of Cell Biology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
APStracts 3:0110L, 1996.
A putative sub 10 kDa basement membrane activity required for lung alveolar formation in vitro. Basement membrane promotes the reassembly of isolated type II alveolar cells into alveoli-like structures, a process attributable in part to a novel cell adhesion site in the [alpha]1 chain of laminin-1 (Matter and Laurie, 1994). The possibility that basement membrane contains other alveolarization activities was probed by subtraction analysis and use of neutralizing antibodies. Deletion of components less than 100 kDa, and subsequently less than 10 kDa reduced alveolar cross-sectional area by 70% to 22 - 25 x 103 [mu]m2 - the approximate size of alveolar -like structures formed on purified laminin-1 alone. The deleted basement membrane material was adhesive for type II alveolar cells but failed to support alveolar formation in the absence of laminin-1. Preincubation of basement membrane with neutralizing anti-EGF, -bFGF, -IGFII or -TGF[beta] antibodies had no inhibitory effect. Since both subtracted basement membrane preparations have in common the exclusion of components less than 10 kDa, these results are interpreted as pointing to a sub 10 kDa alveolarization activity(s) which plays a key accessory role in laminin-1 - dependent alveolar formation. 

Received 3 May 1996; accepted in final form 20 June 1996.
APS Manuscript Number L132-6.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Lung Cell. Mol.
Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 25 July 1996