*4.2. Cell Culture*

A549 lung epithelial cells (CCL-185, ATCC, Manassas, VA, USA) were cultured in Ham's F-12K medium (Thermo Fisher) with 10% FBS as recommended by the ATCC. Cells were grown in a humidified incubator with 5% CO2 at 37 ◦C. Cells were cultured in 75-cm<sup>2</sup> cell culture flasks and subcultured when they reached ~80% confluence at a 1:5 dilution. Cells were lifted using TrypLE Express (Thermo Fisher, Waltham, MA, USA) at 37 ◦C. Cells were maintained at a maximum of 10 passages for the experiments in this work.
