Mesenchymal glucocorticoid receptor regulates the development of multiple cell layers of the mouse lung

Abstract

Endogenous glucocorticoid (GC) hormones, signaling via the GC receptor (GR), are essential for normal lung development, and synthetic GCs are routinely used to treat respiratory disorders of very preterm babies. Germline GR knockout (GR-/-) mice show immature lung morphology and severe lung cellular hyperplasia during embryogenesis and die at birth due to respiratory failure. Two recent studies have reported contradictory results regarding the necessity for GR expression in specific lung germ layers during respiratory maturation. We further investigate in detail the lung phenotype in mice with a conditional deletion of GR in the endothelium, mesenchyme, and lung epithelium. We show that loss..