Intestine chip mimics Covid gut impact
Researchers in the US have used an Intestine Chip to study the effects of Covid on gut health, as well as the impact of various drugs on the disease in the intestinal tract.
Gastrointestinal symptoms (GI) such as nausea, diarrhoea and stomach pain are reported by 60 per cent of Covid patients, but how SARS-CoV-2 actually interacts with the gut is not well understood and difficult to study.
This new work, published in Frontiers in Pharmacology, used an Intestine Chip previously developed at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Made of a clear, flexible polymer, the USB-stick sized device has two parallel channels - one lined with human blood vessel cells, the other with human intestinal lining cells. Between the two channels is a permeable membrane that mimics digestion in the gut by allowing molecular messengers to pass between them. The tissues in the Intestine Chip are also constantly contracted and relaxed to better replicate the action of the gut.
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