The community of cells lining our airways plays a collaborative role in the preservation of immune homeostasis in the lung and provides protection from the pathogens and pollutants in the air we breathe. In addition to its structural attributes that provide effective mucociliary clearance of the lower airspace, the airway epithelium is an immunologically active barrier surface that senses changes in the airway environment and interacts with resident and recruited immune cells. Single-cell RNA-sequencing is illuminating the cellular heterogeneity that exists in the airway wall and has identified novel cell populations with unique molecular signatures, trajectories of differentiation and diverse functions in health and disease. In this Review, we discuss how our view of the airway epithelial landscape has evolved with the advent of transcriptomic approaches to cellular phenotyping, with a focus on epithelial interactions with the local neuronal and immune systems.

我们气道内的细胞群在维持肺部免疫稳态方面发挥着协作作用，并保护我们免受空气中的病原体和污染物的侵害。气道上皮除了提供有效清除下层空气粘膜纤毛的结构属性外，还是一种具有免疫活性的屏障表面，可感知气道环境的变化并与常驻和募集的免疫细胞相互作用。单细胞 RNA 测序阐明了气道壁中存在的细胞异质性，并鉴定出具有独特分子特征、分化轨迹以及健康和疾病中不同功能的新型细胞群。在这篇评论中，