Paracrine regulation of lung maturation

Although there is much yet to be learned about the regulation of fetal lung maturation, the study of this process has yielded much information that may serve as a paradigm for the understanding of fetal growth regulation in general. Two particularly interesting fetal adjustments of general regulatory phenomena have emerged: the ability of local tissue metabolism to anatomically or temporally isolate endocrine effects and the role of paracrine factors in coordinating the responses of different cells in complex organs.