Mechanical forces in lungs facilitate breathing motions. Here the authors use a microfluidic human lung alveolus chip to study influenza infection and find that mechanical forces from active chips also induce innate inflammatory responses via, at least partially, signaling from TRPV4 and RAGE, thereby implicating them as potential therapeutic targets for lung inflammation.
- Haiqing Bai
- Longlong Si
- Donald E. Ingber