Pfleger Yannis, Bode Lena S C, Haberthür David, Hlushchuk Ruslan, Regin Yannick, Gie Andre G, Salaets Thomas, Toelen Jaan, Mühlfeld Christian, Labode Jonas
Institute of Functional and Applied Anatomy, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1, 30625, Hannover, Germany.
Institute of Anatomy, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 2, Bern, 3012, Switzerland.
BMC Med Imaging. 2025 Apr 14;25(1):121. doi: 10.1186/s12880-025-01657-6.
The airways of the mammalian lung form a tree-like structure, starting from the trachea and branching out to the terminal bronchioles. This tree is composed of heterogeneous sub-structures or compartments, varying in morphological characteristics such as composition of airway epithelium, presence of cartilage plates, and number of smooth muscle cell layers or lumen diameter. These compartments may vary in their reaction to different pathological stimuli. Thus, when studying a particular lung disease, the compartments need to be investigated individually and not as part of a more global portmanteau compartment. In the symmetrically branching primate lungs, dividing the airway tree into generations is a common method to create morphologically homogeneous groups of airway segments. In common lab animals however, an asymmetrical branching pattern is present, where conventional branching-based grouping methods are unable to create meaningful results.
Therefore, a morphological clustering approach was tested in the current proof of principle study for its suitability of dividing airways into biologically meaningful sub-compartments. On this basis, an investigation of the distribution of pulmonary airway changes in a bronchopulmonary dysplasia rabbit model was conducted.
The approach of clustering airway segments by morphology instead of branching pattern proved to be capable of creating meaningful airway compartments. This way, the distribution of differences that would not have been visible in a purely global comparison of morphological characteristics, could be identified between disease model and control group.
The employed clustering model is applicable to study the contribution of airway sub-compartments in pulmonary diseases. On this basis, targeted strategies for their mitigation may be developed.
哺乳动物肺的气道形成一种树状结构，始于气管并分支至终末细支气管。这棵“树”由异质的子结构或区室组成，其形态特征各不相同，如气道上皮的组成、软骨板的存在、平滑肌细胞层数或管腔直径。这些区室对不同病理刺激的反应可能不同。因此，在研究特定的肺部疾病时，需要对这些区室进行单独研究，而不是将其作为一个更笼统的综合区室的一部分。在对称分支的灵长类动物肺中，将气道树划分为不同代是创建形态学上均匀的气道段组的常用方法。然而，在常见的实验动物中，存在不对称的分支模式，传统的基于分支的分组方法无法得出有意义的结果。
因此，在当前的原理验证研究中测试了一种形态学聚类方法，以确定其将气道划分为具有生物学意义的子区室的适用性。在此基础上，对支气管肺发育不良兔模型中肺气道变化的分布进行了研究。
通过形态而非分支模式对气道段进行聚类的方法被证明能够创建有意义的气道区室。通过这种方式，可以识别疾病模型和对照组之间在形态特征的纯粹整体比较中无法看到的差异分布。
所采用的聚类模型适用于研究气道子区室在肺部疾病中的作用。在此基础上，可以制定针对性的缓解策略。
