The lung is the most vulnerable target for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, and respiratory failure causing acute respiratory distress syndrome is its foremost outcome. However, the current primary in vitro models in use for SARS-CoV-2 display apparent limitations for modeling such complex human respiratory disease. Although patient cells can directly model the effects of a drug, their availability and capacity for expansion are limited compared with transformed/immortalized cells or tumor-derived cell lines. An additional caveat is that the latter may harbor genetic and metabolic abnormalities making them unsuitable for drug screening. Therefore, it is important to create physiologically relevant human-cell models that can replicate the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2, thus facilitating drug testing. In this study, we show preliminary data on how human induced pluripotent stem cells-derived lung epithelial cell system could emerge as a relevant and sensitive platform for modeling SARS-CoV-2 infection and drug screening.

中文翻译：

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人类诱导的多能干细胞衍生的肺上皮系统用于SARS-CoV-2感染建模及其在药物治疗中的潜力。

肺是严重急性呼吸系统综合症冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）感染的最脆弱目标，导致急性呼吸窘迫综合征的呼吸衰竭是其首要结果。但是，当前用于SARS-CoV-2的主要体外模型显示出对这种复杂的人类呼吸系统疾病建模的明显局限性。尽管患者细胞可以直接模拟药物的作用，但是与转化的/永生化的细胞或肿瘤衍生的细胞系相比，它们的可用性和扩展能力受到限制。另外需要注意的是，后者可能具有遗传和代谢异常，因此不适合进行药物筛选。因此，重要的是要创建可以复制SARS-CoV-2的病理生理学的生理相关的人细胞模型，从而促进药物测试。