Rapid, efficient and dose-controlled delivery of liquid aerosol to pulmonary cells cultured at the air-liquid interface

Introduction: In vitro cell systems play a prominent role in preclinical pathomechanistic and therapeutic studies. Traditionally, these studies have been performed with cells cultured under submerged conditions, i.e. the cells are completely covered with cell culture medium. However, this does not resemble the physiological situation during inhalation therapy, where the aerosolized drug is deposited onto the air-exposed, apical side of the pulmonary epithelium. Here we present a novel cell exposure system (ALICE) for dose-controlled delivery of aerosolized liquids to cell systems cultured at the air-liquid inter…