Nature Communications (Jan 2020)

Microengineered human blood–brain barrier platform for understanding nanoparticle transport mechanisms

  • Song Ih Ahn,
  • Yoshitaka J. Sei,
  • Hyun-Ji Park,
  • Jinhwan Kim,
  • Yujung Ryu,
  • Jeongmoon J. Choi,
  • Hak-Joon Sung,
  • Tobey J. MacDonald,
  • Allan I. Levey,
  • YongTae Kim

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13896-7
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

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Developing an in vitro blood-brain-barrier (BBB) model that reproduces the organ’s complex structure and function is an open challenge. Here the authors present a BBB-on-a-chip that includes endothelial cells, pericytes and a 3D astrocytic network which resembles the morphology and function of astrocytes in the BBB in vivo.