Table 1.
Advantages and disadvantages of 3D models
| Model | Advantages | Disadvantages | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Air‐liquid‐interface | Self‐made: | Self‐made: | 42, 43, 44, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56 |
| • Long‐term cultivation (weeks to months) | • Lack of complexity | ||
| • Opportunity for direct application of substances | Commercially available: | ||
| • Perfusion possible | • Lack of modifiability | ||
| • Great variety of functional studies | |||
| • Simulating breathing motions of the lung | |||
| Commercially available: | |||
| • High data reproducibility | |||
| • Low batch‐to‐batch variabilities | |||
| • Well characterized | |||
| • Can be provided mimicking several pathologies | |||
| • Long‐term cultivation (up to 12 months) | |||
| Spheroids | • Simple | • High shear force | 45, 47, 48 |
| • Allows co‐culture with different cell types | • Long term culture difficult (hours to days) | ||
| Lung tissue explants | • Model cellular and molecular interplay | • Short term cultivation (up to 96 h) | 71, 72, 74 |
| • Characterization of resident innate immune events | • No immune cell recruitment | ||
| • Live cell imaging possible | • No systemic perfusion | ||
| • Genetic modifications become possible | • No ventilation | ||
| • Genetic modifications still difficult | |||
| Precision cut lung slices | • Long‐term cultivation (up to 1 week) | • Flushing with low melting point agarose necessary | 75, 76, 136, 158 |
| • Retain cellular and structural organization of the lung | • Others as above in lung tissue explants | ||
| • Generation of PCLS from diseased tissue is challenging | |||
| Bronchial rings | • Direct investigation of bronchial physiological responses‐, e.g., contraction‐pharmacological controllability | • Short term cultivation (hours to days) | 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86 |
| • Technically cultivation circuits necessary | |||
| Ex vivo perfused and ventilated human lungs | • Investigation of lung edema formation, oxygenation capacity, vascular reactivity, bacterial infection, and stem cell therapy | • Limited available | 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94 |
| • Technically elaborated | |||
| • Cultivated so far for only several hours | |||
| Scaffold based models | • Maintain characteristics of their respective disease pathologies | • Cells are seeded in two or three dimensions | 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 105 |
| • Physiologic seeding of cells into either the airway or vascular compartments with an artificial pleura | • Initial cell seeding is stochastic | ||
| • Able to recapitulate the heterogeneity of human disease | • Limited access to nutrients and oxygen in the inner portions of the scaffold | ||
| • Cultivation for up to 1 month |