title: Engineering an in vitro air-blood barrier by 3D bioprinting.
abstract: Intensive efforts in recent years to develop and commercialize in vitro alternatives in the field of risk assessment have yielded new promising two- and three dimensional (3D) cell culture models. Nevertheless, a realistic 3D in vitro alveolar model is not available yet. Here we report on the biofabrication of the human air-blood tissue barrier analogue composed of an endothelial cell, basement membrane and epithelial cell layer by using a bioprinting technology. In contrary to the manual method, we demonstrate that this technique enables automatized and reproducible creation of thinner and more homogeneous cell layers, which is required for an optimal air-blood tissue barrier. This bioprinting platform will offer an excellent tool to engineer an advanced 3D lung model for high-throughput screening for safety assessment and drug efficacy testing.
authors.affiliation: Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Chemin des Verdiers 4, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Lenke
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Horváth
authors.affiliation: Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Chemin des Verdiers 4, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Yuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Umehara
authors.affiliation: Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Chemin des Verdiers 4, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Corinne
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jud
authors.affiliation: Department of Respiratory Medicine, Bern University Hospital, CH-3010 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Fabian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Blank
authors.affiliation: Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Chemin des Verdiers 4, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Alke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Petri-Fink
authors.affiliation: Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Chemin des Verdiers 4, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rothen-Rutishauser
mesh_terms: D062028:Bioprinting / Q000379:methods*; D015824:Blood-Air Barrier / Q000502:physiology*; D002450:Cell Communication; D002460:Cell Line; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D048430:Cell Shape; D002470:Cell Survival; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D018920:Coculture Techniques; D006801:Humans; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal; D066330:Printing, Three-Dimensional; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*