Organs-on-a-chip and engineered human tissues in drug development / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Organs-on-a-chip (OOC) is a chip that miniatures tissues or organs in vitro to simulate human physiological or pathological activities. OBJECTIVE: To review the design considerations of single and multi-OOCs, expound its achievements, potential and application prospect in drug development and precision medicine, as well as the remaining challenges. METHODS: We searched relevant articles in PubMed and CNKI databases with the keywords of “organs-on-a-chip, liver, blood-brain barrier, tumor” in Chinese and “organs-on-a-chip, drug development, cell culture, organoids, microfluidic systems, induced pluripotent stem cells, liver” in English, respectively. Finally, 68 articles were analyzed in this review. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: OOC is a breakthrough technology that benefits from progresses in engineered human tissue engineering, semiconductor fabrication and adult somatic cell culture, exceeding the limitations of current cell and animal models. The activities, mechanical properties and physiological reactions of the whole organ or human system can be embodied in the 3D microfluidic OOC. As it can simulate physiological or pathological states in vitro by integrating human cells with physiology-related microenvironments, OOCs are expected to supplement and reduce the pre-clinical trials of drugs, medical devices and biological materials, offering a favorable in vitro platform for screening drug-related adverse reactions.