Scientists have developed a 3D biofilm that can be used to reproduce the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients to support improved research, it has been announced.
The team hope their work can lead to a better understanding of the biology of this environment and lead to new treatments.
Writing in Matter yesterday, Dr Yuanhao Wu of the University of Nottingham, UK, and colleagues say: “There is an unmet need to create 3D biofilms in vitro to understand their biology and develop solutions to the problems they cause.
“Here, we report a living material platform made by co-assembly of artificial sputum medium with peptide amphiphiles to engineer functional 3D biofilms of polymicrobial communities.”
They add that this material can create a model of infected lung epithelial tissue that can be used to study the impact of antibiotics. In cystic fibrosis patients, the natural biofilms in the lung are highly resilient to antibiotics, due to a genetic alteration.
“This study introduces an innovative living material platform based on supramolecular co-assembly and the capability to be liquid-in-liquid bioprinted, offering a fresh concept toward living material design,” they report.
They believe that the capacity to create complex 3D biofilms in the lab in a simple manner, will lead to practical tools to better understand how these living structures form and how to treat them better.”
Co-author Professor Cámara stated: “The technology developed in this study will revolutionise the way we study biofilm-mediated infections and assess the effectiveness of novel antimicrobials using different in vivo-like infection environments.”
Wu, Y. et al. Co-assembling living material as an in vitro lung epithelial infection model. Matter 21 November 2023; doi: 10.1016/j.matt.2023.10.029
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