Towards the development of human immune-system-on-a-chip platforms

•Immune system plays a critical role in maintaining homeostasis of the human body.•Development of immune-system-on-a-chip platforms is in its infancy.•Several platforms emulate lymphoid organs and immune component-integrated tissues.•Reproducing complexity and tissue interactions is key to engineeri...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Drug discovery today 2019-02, Vol.24 (2), p.517-525
Main Authors: Polini, Alessandro, del Mercato, Loretta L., Barra, Adriano, Zhang, Yu Shrike, Calabi, Franco, Gigli, Giuseppe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Humans
Immune System
Lab-On-A-Chip Devices
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•Immune system plays a critical role in maintaining homeostasis of the human body.•Development of immune-system-on-a-chip platforms is in its infancy.•Several platforms emulate lymphoid organs and immune component-integrated tissues.•Reproducing complexity and tissue interactions is key to engineering such platforms.•Immune-system-on-a-chip platforms will enable personalized immunoscreening. Organ-on-a-chip (OoCs) platforms could revolutionize drug discovery and might ultimately become essential tools for precision therapy. Although many single-organ and interconnected systems have been described, the immune system has been comparatively neglected, despite its pervasive role in the body and the trend towards newer therapeutic products (i.e., complex biologics, nanoparticles, immune checkpoint inhibitors, and engineered T cells) that often cause, or are based on, immune reactions. In this review, we recapitulate some distinctive features of the immune system before reviewing microfluidic devices that mimic lymphoid organs or other organs and/or tissues with an integrated immune system component.
ISSN:1359-6446
1878-5832
DOI:10.1016/j.drudis.2018.10.003