TY - JOUR T1 - The lung in a dish - A new tool to study interactions of inhaled (nano)materials with lung cells JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 40 IS - Suppl 56 SP - P3726 AU - Corinne Jud AU - Silvia Angeloni AU - Loretta Müller AU - Martha Liley AU - Alke Petri-Fink AU - Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser Y1 - 2012/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P3726.abstract N2 - The human lung is exposed to a huge number of nanosized materials with each breath. To study the interaction of those materials with the lung, biomimetic cell culture models are needed.The human air-blood tissue barrier consisting of epithelial cells, the basal lamina and endothelial cells is less than 1μm thick. Conventional cell culture inserts have a thickness of ∼10μm which has been a major drawback to establish realistic models. Therefore, a novel ultrathin porous membrane with a thinness of 500nm was developed to refine an established human air-blood tissue barrier model consisting of epithelial cells (A549), monocyte-derived macrophages and dendritic cells by replacing the conventional inserts with the novel membranes but also complement it with endothelial cells (EA.hy926).Epithelial cells seeded on the upper side of the membrane and endothelial cells on the lower side grow to confluence and form a tight bilayer. Immune fluorescence stainings revealed the typical characteristics of epithelial/endothelial cells and specific markers (von Willebrand factor and PECAM) were exclusively detected in the endothelial cell layer. Experiments with all four cell types have been performed and showed that all cell types can be cultured together as a quadruple model on the new ultrathin membrane.Once fully established and characterized, this new system will offer an advanced 3D cell culture model of the human airway barrier and an excellent tool to study the effects of inhalable substances (e.g. nanomaterials) with a realistic lung model. This will significantly reduce the number of animals used to perform inhalation risk assessments and will offer a controlled system for different studies. ER -