Baddal Buket, Marrazzo Pasquale
Department of Medical Microbiology and Clinical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Near East University, Nicosia 99138, Cyprus.
Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy.
Pathogens. 2021 Feb 13;10(2):203. doi: 10.3390/pathogens10020203.
Bioinspired organ-level in vitro platforms that recapitulate human organ physiology and organ-specific responses have emerged as effective technologies for infectious disease research, drug discovery, and personalized medicine. A major challenge in tissue engineering for infectious diseases has been the reconstruction of the dynamic 3D microenvironment reflecting the architectural and functional complexity of the human body in order to more accurately model the initiation and progression of host-microbe interactions. By bridging the gap between in vitro experimental models and human pathophysiology and providing alternatives for animal models, organ-on-chip microfluidic devices have so far been implemented in multiple research areas, contributing to major advances in the field. Given the emergence of the recent pandemic, plug-and-play organ chips may hold the key for tackling an unmet clinical need in the development of effective therapeutic strategies. In this review, latest studies harnessing organ-on-chip platforms to unravel host-pathogen interactions are presented to highlight the prospects for the microfluidic technology in infectious diseases research.
能够模拟人体器官生理学和器官特异性反应的受生物启发的器官水平体外平台，已成为传染病研究、药物发现和个性化医疗的有效技术。传染病组织工程中的一个主要挑战是重建反映人体结构和功能复杂性的动态三维微环境，以便更准确地模拟宿主与微生物相互作用的起始和进展。通过弥合体外实验模型与人类病理生理学之间的差距，并为动物模型提供替代方案，芯片器官微流控设备目前已在多个研究领域得到应用，推动了该领域的重大进展。鉴于近期大流行的出现，即插即用的器官芯片可能是解决有效治疗策略开发中未满足的临床需求的关键。在这篇综述中，展示了利用芯片器官平台来揭示宿主与病原体相互作用的最新研究，以突出微流控技术在传染病研究中的前景。
