Newly identified cell type could be targeted for cystic fibrosis

In a pair of Nature papers, two groups identified a new cell type, the pulmonary ionocyte, that produces most of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) in the airways, suggesting cystic fibrosis therapies for CFTR correction could be targeted to these cells.

A team at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) and another at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital both used single cell RNA sequencing on primary cells from human and mouse airways to comprehensively characterize all the airway epithelium cell types...