posted on 2024-02-15, 18:35authored byYi Zhao, Wen-Ting Fan, Kai-Qi Jin, Jing Yan, Yu-Ting Qi, Wei-Hua Huang, Yan-Ling Liu
Nanoplastics
from air pollutants can be directly inhaled
into the
alveoli in the lungs and further enter blood circulation, and numerous
studies have revealed the close relation between internalized nanoplastics
with many physiological disorders via intracellular oxidative stress.
However, the dynamic process of nanoplastics-induced oxidative stress
in lung cells under breath-mimicked conditions is still unclear, due
to the lack of methods that can reproduce the mechanical stretching
of the alveolar and simultaneously monitor the oxidative stress response.
Here, we describe a biomimetic platform by culturing alveoli epithelial
cells on a stretchable electrochemical sensor and integrating them
into a microfluidic device. This allows reproducing the respiration
of alveoli by cyclic stretching of the alveoli epithelial cells and
monitoring the nanoplastics-induced oxidative stress by the built-in
sensor. By this device, we prove that cyclic stretches can greatly
enhance the cellular uptake of nanoplastics with the dependencies
of strain amplitude. Importantly, oxidative stress evoked by internalized
nanoplastics can be quantitatively monitored in real time. This work
will promote the deep understanding about the cytotoxicity of inhaled
nanoplastics in the pulmonary mechanical microenvironment.