The Korea Biotechnology Research Institute (President Kwon Seok -yoon) has developed a ‘alveolar assembled’ that simulates the actual human waste environment.
Life Yeon said on the 15th that Dr. Lee Mi -ok, a team of Dr. Lee Mi -ok, has achieved the same results with Dr. Kim Jong -hyun, a team of Kim Jong -hyun.
The lungs are directly contacted with external air and are first exposed to harmful substances such as viruses, bacteria and fine dust. Alveolar epithelial cells and resident macrophages cooperate with each other to coordinate the initial immune response. The interaction and immune function studies have been mainly dependent on experimental animal models such as rats.
However, it was difficult to accurately reproduce the interaction and immune response between human lung cells due to the difference in physiology between humans and animals.
The answer is organoid. It is a mini organ made of three -dimensional structure using stem cells, and is a core technology in the life science and medical science field that can partly simulate the actual organ structure and function to reproduce an environment similar to human organs in the laboratory.
However, the existing closed organoid model did not contain immune cells, so it was not enough to reproduce the complex lung immune environment.
The team co -cultured alveolar epithelial cells and macrophages derived from human stem cells to create ‘guided alveolar assemblies’ that can reproduce the actual human lung structure and immune response.
In addition, the differentiation and functional characteristics of each of the two cells were optimized, and the co -culture customized culture conditions were established to maintain interaction between cells.
It is the first achievement of developing a platform that can reproduce and analyze the body’s reaction in the lab.
In particular, it is possible to elaborate the functions performed by the actual alveolar macrophages, such as removing damage epithelial cells, absorption of lipid oxide, and tuberculosis infection reactions, and are currently being used for the study of severe corona virus infections and high risk bird flu.
In addition, the National Preliminary Principal Support Center (KPEC) uses the development model to evaluate the candidate effectiveness of the respiratory virus treatment.
Dr. Lee Mi -ok, head of research, said, “In the meantime, the lack of immune cells has been pointed out as a major function limit in organoid studies, and this study has developed a new 3D research platform for the study of lung damage and infectious diseases.” It is. ”
The achievements were published on the online edition of Nature Communications on April 9.
By Kim Young -jun, reporter kyj85@etnews.com
