微流控芯片技术在肺部炎性疾病研究和诊断中的进展

Advances of using microfluidic chips for research and diagnosis of pulmonary inflammatory diseases

摘要:

微流控芯片技术是指一种将生物、化学等诸多领域的样品从制备、反应到分离检测等多种操作单元高度集成在一块芯片上的技术，由网络状微通道构成，可以通过流体操控整个系统。相比构建模型的传统方法, 具有便携性、高通量、可模拟在体微环境等优势，在研究疾病的诊断、发病机理研究以及药物筛选等方面有着广阔的应用前景。肺部炎性疾病是临床常见的多发病，通常由于细菌、病毒、真菌感染引起。早期肺炎常缺乏明显的呼吸系统症状且症状多不典型，但病情进展快，难以诊断。近年来，微流控芯片技术已经逐渐用于肺部炎性疾病的研究中。尤其是可以再现人肺泡毛细血管界面 (即活肺的基本功能单元) 的关键结构、功能和机械性质的“芯片肺”模型的应用，很好地在体外呈现了肺泡-毛细血管界面模型的生理相关性。相比细胞和动物模型，这种多功能微实验平台具有非常大的优势。文中针对微流控芯片技术在肺部炎性疾病研究和诊断中的进展进行了综述，旨在为肺部炎性疾病的研究和诊断提供新思路。

关键词:微流控芯片，芯片肺，肺炎，肺部疾病，炎性疾病，新冠病毒

Abstract:

Microfluidic chip technology integrates the sample preparation, reaction, separation and detection on a chip. It consists a network of microchannels, which controls the whole system through fluid. With the advantages of portability, high throughput, and the ability to simulate the microenvironment in vivo, it has a broad application prospect in the research of disease diagnosis, pathogenesis and drug screening. Pulmonary inflammatory disease is a common disease usually caused by bacterial, viral and fungal infections. Early pneumonia is often difficult to diagnose due to lack of obvious respiratory symptoms or the symptoms are mostly atypical, but the disease progresses rapidly. Recently, microfluidic chip technology has been increasingly used to the study of pulmonary inflammatory diseases. In particular, it has been used to develop a “lung-on-a-chip” model, which can reproduce the key structure, function and mechanical properties of human alveolar capillary interface (i.e., the basic functional unit of a living lung), and well simulate the alveoli in vitro. Compared with the cell and animal models, this multifunctional micro experimental platform has great advantages. This article summarizes the advances of using microfluidic chips for the research and diagnosis of pulmonary inflammatory diseases, with the aim to provide new ideas for researchers in this area.

Key words:microfluidic chip, lung-on-a-chip, pneumonia, lung diseases, inflammatory diseases, SARS-CoV-2