Scientist - News - 03-04-2009:
Intestinal tissue grown in a dish
Beintema, Nienke
Dutch scientists have managed to culture complete intestinal tissue from a single stem cell. The tissue regenerated in a normal manner for several months, and comprised all differentiated cell types.
Stem cells are cells that have not yet differentiated, and that still have the ability to grow into a variety of different cell types. Therefore they carry the promise of replacing damaged tissues or even organs. Cells from the patient in question could be used to grow new tissues. This would avoid the problem of rejection that is common in the case of organ donation. This so-called regenerative medicine, however, is not a reality yet. All kinds of practical obstacles are yet to be overcome.
The research group led by Hans Clevers at the Hubrecht Institute (affiliated with the Utrecht University Medical Centre, The Netherlands), has brought this goal one step closer. Clevers and his colleagues successfully cultured mouse intestinal epithelium from a single intestinal stem cell. These results appeared in Nature on 29 March.
Clinical application
In earlier studies, this group had shown that intestinal stem cells, which are located in so-called crypts in the intestinal wall, can be identified on the basis of a specific protein on their cell surface. This protein, called Lgr5+, could be fluorescently labeled, thus showing the researchers which cells to select for their cultures.
The cultured tissue showed many characteristics of ‘real’ intestinal epithelium: the cells were constantly renewed, they showed all differentiated cell types, and together they even showed the correct intestinal structure. Every week, the amount of tissue increased fivefold. "In time, I think it will be no problem to let small, cultured pieces grow together on the right substrate," Hans Clevers clarifies in an email.
"When we used microarrays to compare the activity status of the genes in these tissues," he continues, "we saw no difference between ‘freshly’ isolated intestinal epithelium and cultured epithelium. Therefore I don’t think that the intestinal microbiota that would eventually colonise the new part of the intestine would be significantly different."
The group has already run some experiments with human tissue, which Clevers judges to be promising so far. "Our lab, however, won’t be the one to ‘bring this technology to the patient’," he says. "I expect many other labs around the world to take up this challenge. In any case it will be a number of years before an actual application is to be expected."
More information:
Publication by Clevers et. al. (29 March 2009) in Nature
Website Clevers Group
«BackIntestinal tissue grown in a dish
Beintema, Nienke
Dutch scientists have managed to culture complete intestinal tissue from a single stem cell. The tissue regenerated in a normal manner for several months, and comprised all differentiated cell types.Stem cells are cells that have not yet differentiated, and that still have the ability to grow into a variety of different cell types. Therefore they carry the promise of replacing damaged tissues or even organs. Cells from the patient in question could be used to grow new tissues. This would avoid the problem of rejection that is common in the case of organ donation. This so-called regenerative medicine, however, is not a reality yet. All kinds of practical obstacles are yet to be overcome.
The research group led by Hans Clevers at the Hubrecht Institute (affiliated with the Utrecht University Medical Centre, The Netherlands), has brought this goal one step closer. Clevers and his colleagues successfully cultured mouse intestinal epithelium from a single intestinal stem cell. These results appeared in Nature on 29 March.
Clinical application
In earlier studies, this group had shown that intestinal stem cells, which are located in so-called crypts in the intestinal wall, can be identified on the basis of a specific protein on their cell surface. This protein, called Lgr5+, could be fluorescently labeled, thus showing the researchers which cells to select for their cultures.
The cultured tissue showed many characteristics of ‘real’ intestinal epithelium: the cells were constantly renewed, they showed all differentiated cell types, and together they even showed the correct intestinal structure. Every week, the amount of tissue increased fivefold. "In time, I think it will be no problem to let small, cultured pieces grow together on the right substrate," Hans Clevers clarifies in an email.
"When we used microarrays to compare the activity status of the genes in these tissues," he continues, "we saw no difference between ‘freshly’ isolated intestinal epithelium and cultured epithelium. Therefore I don’t think that the intestinal microbiota that would eventually colonise the new part of the intestine would be significantly different."
The group has already run some experiments with human tissue, which Clevers judges to be promising so far. "Our lab, however, won’t be the one to ‘bring this technology to the patient’," he says. "I expect many other labs around the world to take up this challenge. In any case it will be a number of years before an actual application is to be expected."
More information:
Publication by Clevers et. al. (29 March 2009) in Nature
Website Clevers Group