AccScience Publishing / MI / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/mi.7719
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REVIEW ARTICLE

Lung development, health, and diseases

Feranmi Emmanuel Obe1* ,  Isaac Olamide Babalola2 ,  Victor Abiodun Adebiyi2 ,  Ayomide Oreoluwa Adetoro3 ,  Florence Inioluwa Omotoso2 ,  Oluwafemi Rachel Alamu2
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1 Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, United States of America
2 Department of Medical Laboratory Science, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria
3 Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Nursing, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria
MI, 7719 https://doi.org/10.36922/mi.7719
Received: 16 December 2024 | Revised: 21 April 2025 | Accepted: 6 May 2025 | Published online: 12 June 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Immune Responses to Pulmonary Infections)
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

The lungs emerge from the foregut during the embryonic stage, and as they mature, they go through additional morphological and functional changes that extend into the postnatal stage of development. Each developmental stage of the lung is tightly regulated by specific signaling pathways. Nkx2.1 signaling, which is essential for lung specification, is improved by Wnt/β-catenin signaling but necessitates active bone morphogenic protein signaling. Branching morphogenesis of the lungs requires fibroblast growth factor, while vascular endothelial growth factor signaling promotes endothelial cell survival and capillary development. Disruption at any of these developmental stages can result in congenital lung disorders. Although the lungs are quiescent in adulthood, they retain the capacity for regeneration in response to injury caused by infectious and non-infectious agents. Essentially, the lung’s microbiota plays a role in maintaining lung health and disease. Treatment with probiotics has been established in many infectious lung diseases; however, further research is necessary to fully establish their therapeutic potential in treating these conditions.

Keywords
Development
Embryogenesis
Lungs
Regeneration
Signaling
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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