The lung develops from a pouch of pharyngeal tissue which gives rise to the highly branched airways of the fully mature adult lung by undergoing a tightly controlled pattern of repeated budding and branching (Warburton, 2008). Moreover, throughout this developmental process, liquid is secreted into the lumen of the developing lung via a mechanism dependent upon electrogenic, transepithelial anion transport (Olver & Strang, 1974) and, since this liquid is secreted against the resistance provided by the larynx, it establishes a distending pressure (2-3 Torr) that is crucial for lung proper morphogenesis (Olver & Strang, 1974) and clinical conditions which disrupt this pressure (e.g. oligohydramnios, congenital diaphragmatic hernia) lead to lung hypoplasia and a reduction in the number of airway generations. It is therefore clear that lung morphogenesis is a complex process dependent upon a finely controlled developmental programme. Whilst the factors which control this process have yet to be fully understood, in this issue of The Journal of Physiology, Finney et al.
展开▼
机译：肺部由一袋咽部组织发育而成，通过严格控制重复芽接和分支的方式，形成了完全成熟的成年肺的高度分支的气道（Warburton，2008）。此外，在整个发育过程中，液体是通过依赖于上皮的，经上皮的阴离子运输的机制分泌到发育中的肺腔中的（Olver＆Strang，1974），由于这种液体是针对喉部抵抗力而分泌的，因此，建立一个扩张压力（2-3 Torr），这对于肺部正常形态发生至关重要（Olver＆Strang，1974），并且破坏该压力的临床状况（例如羊水过少，先天性diaphragm肌疝）会导致肺发育不全，并减少气道世代。因此很明显，肺形态发生是一个复杂的过程，取决于精细控制的发育程序。尽管控制该过程的因素尚未完全理解，但在本期《生理学杂志》（Finney et al。
展开▼
