Lung alveolar epithelial cell migration in vitro: modulators and regulation processes.

After acute lung injury, altered bronchioloalveolar epithelia must be repaired quickly in order to restore lung function. During reepithelialization, type II cells initially appear to migrate and spread over a remodeled matrix; then a secondary proliferative phase occurs. It was hypothesized that 1) type II cells can develop locomotion in vitro that is modulated by growth factors, proinflammatory cytokines, and substrate adhesion molecules and 2) migration and proliferation of type II cells can occur as distinctive processes. Chemotaxis assays were elaborated using short term cultures of rat type II pneumocytes. Epidermal growth factor (EGF), transforming growth factor-alpha, laminin, fibronectin were found to be the main attractants for type II cells with respective increases of approximately 8.5-, 10.5-, 8-, and 7-fold in cell migration (P<0.05 vs. control). Laminin induced gradient-dependent and random cell migration. Addition of laminin with EGF had a synergistic effect in promoting cell migration (approximately 30-fold increase over control, P<0.05). Interferon-gamma and interleukin-6 inhibited EGF-induced type II cell migration, whereas tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-1beta acted as primers for type II cell migration (approximately 1.5-fold increase over control, P<0.05. Type II cells did not need to be in a proliferative phase in order to exhibit motility. New insights regarding the regulatory processes for type II cell migration are especially relevant in our understanding of early events occurring during epithelial repair after acute lung injury.