Int J Stem Cells.  2024 Feb;17(1):30-37. 10.15283/ijsc23090.

Lung Organoid on a Chip: A New Ensemble Model for Preclinical Studies

• Kim HJ
• Park S
• Jeong S
• Kim J
• Cho YJ

• KMID: 2552015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.15283/ijsc23090

Abstract

The lung is a complex organ comprising a branched airway that connects the large airway and millions of terminal gas-exchange units. Traditional pulmonary biomedical research by using cell line model system have limitations such as lack of cellular heterogeneity, animal models also have limitations including ethical concern, race-to-race variations, and physiological differences found in vivo. Organoids and on-a-chip models offer viable solutions for these issues. Organoids are three-dimensional, self-organized construct composed of numerous cells derived from stem cells cultured with growth factors required for the maintenance of stem cells. On-a-chip models are biomimetic microsystems which are able to customize to use microfluidic systems to simulate blood flow in blood channels or vacuum to simulate human breathing. This review summarizes the key components and previous biomedical studies conducted on lung organoids and lung-on-a-chip models, and introduces potential future applications. Considering the importance and benefits of these model systems, we believe that the system will offer better platform to biomedical researchers on pulmonary diseases, such as emerging viral infection, progressive fibrotic pulmonary diseases, or primary or metastatic lung cancer.

Keyword

Lung; Pulmonary diseases; Organoids; Microphysiological systems

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Microphysiological systems as a viable substitute for traditional experimental models. Using microphy-siological systems can mitigate standard in vivo models and animal experiments’ drawbacks.

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  Fig. 2 Recent PubMed lung organoids or lung-on-a-chip publications. The number of articles in PubMed on lung organoids or lung-on-a-chip technology continues to increase steadily. The query used to search was “(lung organoid) or (lung on a chip).”

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  Fig. 3 Ensemble of lung organoids and organs-on-a-chip. Lung organoids derived from the patient can be effectively integrated into the organ-on-a-chip methodology, thereby facilitating disease modeling and screening of the-rapeutic drugs. The distinctive archite-cture of the on-a-chip technique facilitates the flow of media and co-cultiva-tion of diverse cell types.

Reference

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