All-Inkjet-Printed Alveolar Barrier Model

Abstract

An alveolar barrier that exists in the gas exchanging area of the lung consists of epithelium, basement membrane, and endothelium with a thickness of 0.6 ‒ 2 μm. There is an urgent need to develop the biomimetic barrier model in vitro for particle exposure test and drug discovery in respiratory medicine. However, current fabrication techniques have limitation to mimic the very thin multiple microsystem that replicates the complex physicological functionality. Among various bioprinting techniques developed to date, inkjet printing is a subtype of bioprinting technique, which can eject inks in picolitre-level droplets in a drop-on-demand manner and with high precision. Here, we demonstrate for the first time an all-inkjet-printed human alveolar barrier model including 4 alveolar cell types with a thickness of ~10 μm.