Liver-on-chip models mimic in vivo livers, liver disease

The liver plays an important role in the metabolism of amino acids, carbohydrates, and nitrogen, as well as detoxification, conjugation, and activation. Consequently, researchers are developing platforms to better understand liver physiology and the pathogenetic mechanisms of liver disease.

Lee et al. review the recent development of liver-on-a-chip models that closely mimic in vivo liver environments and liver diseases. These models fabricate micro chambers that represent different organs, such as the gut and liver, and micro channels that connect those chambers like blood vessels.

“With this model, we can mimic not only the chemical reactions happening in these organs but also the communication between the organs,” said author Jong Hwan Sung.

As the researchers studied the progress of fatty liver disease, they observed some compounds work directly in the liver by inhibiting the fat accumulation in the liver, whereas some compounds work by interacting with the gut by fortifying the gut epithelium and reducing the fat absorption in the gut, for example.

“The main originality of our work lies in the idea of connecting different organ modules in vitro, which we call multi-organ-on-a-chip” said Sung. “Our recent interest is in finding novel ways to interpret the observations of multi-organ interaction, such as the absorption, metabolism, and excretion occurring sequentially in the gut, liver, and the kidney.”

Going forward, the researchers seek to increase the number of connected organs from 2-4 to 5-10, which increases the complexity of physical and chemical interactions.

New in vitro models of disease are helpful in medical science and the pharmaceutical industry. The cost and time of drug development, for instance, can be significantly reduced for instance by offering more physiologically realistic models.

Source: “Microtechnology-based in vitro models mimicking liver function and pathophysiology,” by Seung Yeon Lee, Donghyun Kim, Seung Hwan Lee, and Jong Hwan Sung, APL Bioengineering (2021). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0061896 .

This paper is part of the Bioengineering of the Liver Collection. Learn more here: https://aip.scitation.org/toc/apb/collection/10.1063/apb.2021.BOL2021.issue-1 .