Design of a microfluidic lung chip and its application in assessing the toxicity of formaldehyde

Abstract

In this work, a microfluidic lung chip with membrane supporting cell growth that can produce multiple concentration gradients of gas and liquid is introduced. The chip is composed of a gas gradient layer in the upper part, a porous membrane supporting cell growth in the middle and a liquid gradient layer in the lower part. The gas-liquid interface environment of the cells on the membrane can expose the cells to the gas in the upper layer and the liquid in the lower layer at the same time. Then, the chip is applied to the toxicity testing of formaldehyde in A549 cells. The results showed that at 6 × 10⁻⁵mol/L formaldehyde, the survival rate of the cells in four channels were 90, 87, 81, and 71%, which shows a dose-response trend under the influence of different concentrations of formaldehyde. ROS staining results also showed that formaldehyde exposure at 6 × 10⁻⁵mol/L lead to the increase of ROS level in the cells. These results suggest that the chip based on cell growth on membrane could be used for toxicological evaluation of environmental polluting gases.

Keywords:

• Microfluidic chip
• lung chip
• gas-liquid interface
• formaldehyde
• toxicity

Author contributions

Xiang Li and Fuwei Xie contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Man Su, Zezhi Li, Chenfeng Hua, Pingping Shang, Junwei Zhao and Kejian Liu. The manuscript was drafted by Man Su and Xiang Li. Fuiwei Xie commented on the manuscript and Xiang Li revised it. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Key Technologies R&D Program of Henan Province, China [No. 222102310249], the Project from China National Tobacco Corporation [No. 110202102015] and the scientific research program of innovation platform in State Tobacco Monopoly Administration [No. 312021AW0420].