Open AccessReversed-engineered human alveolar lung-on-a-chip model
Author(s) -
Di Huang,
Tingting Liu,
Junlong Liao,
Sushila Maharjan,
Xin Xie,
Montserrat Pérez,
Ingrid Anaya,
Shiwei Wang,
Alan Tirado Mayer,
Zhixin Kang,
Weijia Kong,
Valerio Luca Mainardi,
Carlos Ezio GarciamendezMijares,
Germán García Martínez,
Matteo Moretti,
Weijia Zhang,
Zhongze Gu,
Amir M. Ghaemmaghami,
Yu Shrike Zhang
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2016146118
Subject(s) - lung , human lung , a549 cell , gelatin , pathology , polydimethylsiloxane , biophysics , microbiology and biotechnology , chemistry , materials science , nanotechnology , biology , medicine , biochemistry
Significance This work reports the development of a physiologically relevant human alveolar lung-on-a-chip model, composed of a three-dimensional (3D) porous hydrogel made of gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) featuring an inverse opal structure, bonded to a compartmentalized chip device that provides air–liquid interface and cyclic breathing motions. Significantly, this GelMA structure has a high similarity to native human alveolar sacs in that they both possess sac-like pores and interconnecting windows between the sacs, in addition to a stiffness similar to the native human distal lung. We showed through multiscale analyses that our 3D GelMA inverse opal structure was better able to maintain the functions of primary human alveolar epithelial cells in a more in vivo-like manner compared with planar models.