Biomimetic Alveolus-on-a-Chip for SARS-CoV-2 Infection Recapitulation

Ting Cao; Changmin Shao; Xiaoyu Yu; Ruipei Xie; Chen Yang; Yulong Sun; Shaohua Yang; Wangjian He; Ye Xu; Qihui Fan; Fangfu Ye

doi:10.34133/2022/9819154

Biomimetic Alveolus-on-a-Chip for SARS-CoV-2 Infection Recapitulation

Research (Wash D C). 2022 Feb 4:2022:9819154. doi: 10.34133/2022/9819154. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Ting Cao^{1

2

3}, Changmin Shao^{1

3}, Xiaoyu Yu⁴, Ruipei Xie², Chen Yang⁴, Yulong Sun^{1

2

3}, Shaohua Yang⁴, Wangjian He⁴, Ye Xu⁴, Qihui Fan², Fangfu Ye^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325001, China.
² Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
³ Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325001, China.
⁴ School of Mechanical Engineering & Automation, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China.

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 has caused a severe pneumonia pandemic worldwide with high morbidity and mortality. How to develop a preclinical model for recapitulating SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis is still urgent and essential for the control of the pandemic. Here, we have established a 3D biomimetic alveolus-on-a-chip with mechanical strain and extracellular matrix taken into consideration. We have validated that the alveolus-on-a-chip is capable of recapitulating key physiological characteristics of human alveolar units, which lays a fundamental basis for viral infection studies at the organ level. Using virus-analogous chemicals and pseudovirus, we have explored virus pathogenesis and blocking ability of antibodies during viral infection. This work provides a favorable platform for SARS-CoV-2-related researches and has a great potential for physiology and pathophysiology studies of the human lung at the organ level in vitro.