Institute of Experimental Medicine CAS

LIVe 2022 - Lung In Vitro Event for Innovative and Predictive Models

Published 05. 07. 2022

On 13-14 June 2022, the two-day international conference LIVe2022 took place in Nice, France.

The conference aimed to provide a joint meeting of scientists and experts focused on “in vitro“ studies of respiratory models to present their latest research projects. The conference was attended by top international scientists, clinicians and representatives of pharmaceutical, biotechnology, tobacco and other commercial companies.

IEM CAS was represented by PhD student Mgr. Tereza Červená from the Department of Nanotoxicology and Molecular Epidemiology. In the poster section, she presented the results of a joint research project of the IEM CAS, the Czech Technical University in Prague, the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, and the Dutch company VSParticle, in which the scientists investigated new possibilities of researching the toxicity of nanoparticles by in vitro exposure using the ALI (real-time air-liquid exposure) method. Further information about the research can be found here.

What did we find?

We were able to expose a cell co-culture of A549 human lung cells and immune cells (macrophages) derived from the THP-1 cell line. Cell co-cultures are superior to conventional monocultures, achieve more objective results and are able to interact with each other as in a living (human) organism.
We exposed cells in an air-liquid system; this mimics the exposure of lung tissue.
Using a particle generator from VSParticle, we produced pure nanoparticles by discharging an electric arc between electrodes (Cu, Au, Fe and C electrodes). The cells were exposed for one hour and 24 hours.
Analyses showed variable particle loss depending on particle type (electrode material), size and concentration.
In our system, after sample wetting, losses were calculated to be 44.51 ± 7.89% for gold nanoparticles, 68.05 ± 1.42% for copper particles, and 36.69 ± 9.96% for iron particles. The lowest was found for carbon particles (28.58±5.81%).
Cell damage in the form of cytotoxicity was low, therefore this system can be used to simulate chronic exposure to low concentrations of nanoparticles.
Other cellular parameters will be analysed in time to determine any damage to their metabolism.