Figure 1.

The activity of Wnt/β-catenin signaling defines distal lung epithelial populations with distinct transcriptome. A, Experimental design and gating strategy for FACS sorting EpCAM⁺Wnt^neg/low/high fractions from TCF/Lef:H2B-GFP (TCF:GFP) mouse lungs. The proportion of the total EpCAM⁺ population represented by each fraction is shown. Mean ± SEM (N = 14). B, Expression of EGFP mRNA in the freshly sorted EpCAM⁺Wnt^high, Wnt^low, and Wnt^neg cells from the TCF:GFP mouse lung. Mean ± SEM (n = 6). Statistics were performed on ΔCT values (ΔCT = CT^HPRT - CT^target). *P < .05, **P < .01, ***P < .001, Student's t test. C, Heatmap of the expression of 19 112 mouse genes showing distinct transcriptome of the sorted Wnt^neg/low/high cells. D, Principle component analysis using the top 500 differentially expressed genes in the Wnt^{neg, low and high} cells (N = 6). EGFP, enhanced green fluorescent protein; FACS, fluorescence-activated cell sorting cells (Figure 1B) and thus refer to these cells as Wnt^neg/low/high cells from here on.