Combining an airway-on-a-chip with a cigarette-smoking machine provides a better understanding of smoke-related pathological changes in individual smokers.
When exposed to cigarette smoke, the airway-on-a-chip experienced changes in oxidation reduction pathways and gene expression profiles that matched those found in human smokers. Cilia in some areas beat normally but in other areas beat at much reduced rates. When testing e-cigarettes, the researchers found less evidence of changes in oxidation reduction pathways but similar changes in cilia beat patterns.