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. 2019 Nov 12;7:318. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2019.00318

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Copyright © 2019 Mammoto and Mammoto.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Adult lung. In adult alveoli, alveolar membrane (thin part of the alveolar wall) is simply composed of sheet-like AT1 cells, intermediate basement membrane (BM) and capillary ECs, while alveolar interstitium, a thick portion of the alveoli, consists of stromal cells (e.g., fibroblasts, pericytes, macrophages), fibrillar ECMs and separated capillaries. AT1 cells tightly share the basement membrane with capillary ECs in the alveolar membrane. In the interstitium, fibroblasts play a critical role in supporting the capillary structures by remodeling the local ECM components and supplying growth factors.