The present study aimed at establishing a 3D airway organoid model from primary bronchial epithelial basal cells to investigate the characteristic features of asthma, such as epithelial cell differentiation, epithelial remodeling and mucosal tight junction barrier impairment in the presence of a main pathogenetic type 2 cytokine, IL-13.A 3D airway organoid model was developed from com. obtained healthy primary bronchial epithelial basal cells.In order to study the main features of asthma, cells were continuously stimulated with 2 ng/mL IL-13 every second day starting from Day 2 until the end of the cultures.Treatment of developing spheroids with IL-13 did not affect the spheroid count per well and spheroid size.However, it caused the development of thick-walled spheroids with small or no lumen resulting in a decreased ratio of 'lumen-to-total spheroid area.The differentiation process was greatly affected by the presence of IL-13, resulting in increased differentiation towards mucus-producing goblet cells with a dramatic decrease in mRNA levels of both ciliated cell markers, dynein axonemal intermediate chain 2 (DNAI2) and forkhead box protein J1 (FOXJ1).In addition, it is noteworthy that the mRNA levels of the club cell marker, secretoglobin family 1A member 1 (SCGB1A1) decreased in fully mature spheroids under IL-13 treatment.IL-13 treatment resulted in an impaired epithelial barrier development evidenced with a high 'lumen-to-background intensity ratio' and decreased occludin mRNA and ZO-1 staining intensity on Day 16.In conclusion, we successfully developed an in vitro asthma model with a 3D airway organoid model termed here bronchial epithelial spheroids that recapitulates characteristic features of asthmatic airway epithelia.It demonstrates decreased ciliated and club cells and skew to a high mucus-producing and goblet cell-dominant phenotype with disrupted epithelial barrier by IL-13.The model is adaptable for high-throughput experiments, airway epithelial morphogenesis and development studies.