Utility of Different Human Lung Cell Models for Toxicology, Drug Screening, and Biomarker Discovery

Respiratory disease is ranked one of the leading causes of death globally. If the mechanism of disease is understood the discovery and screening of potential pharmaceuticals and diagnostic tools will likely follow. Human in vitro lung models have provided the opportunity to closely mimic the respiratory system to test exposures. This work investigated the utilities of human in vitro lung cell models for radiological particulate toxicity and biomarker discovery, the screening of peptide countermeasures against host-virus interactions, and the differential gene expression between culture conditions for more effective experiments. The results demonstrate how effective in vitro models can be for toxicology, drug screening, and biomarker discovery and the importance of model parameter selection being based on experimental objectives. The results of this work are intended to improve the understanding of in vitro models and how they are best implemented.