Human intestines from stem cells

For the first time, a fragment of the intestine was grown from stem cells
Dmitry Tselikov, Compulenta 

For the first time, scientists have managed to create a functioning human intestinal tissue in the laboratory from stem cells.

(In fact, as it often happens, "for the first time" is on the conscience of the author of the press release. Probably, they are there in Cincinnati and do not know that their Japanese colleagues got about the same results a little earlier. However, not from human, but from mouse induced pluripotent stem cells – VM.)

The study, carried out by a group of employees of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital (USA) led by James Wells and Jason Spence, used two types of material: human embryonic stem cells (CESCS) and induced pluripotent stem cells (IPCs). The latter were obtained by reprogramming human skin cells.

On the one hand, ESCs are able to transform into any of more than two hundred types of cells in the human body. On the other hand, IPCs are obtained from the cells of the immediate patient and have a similar genetic code, which, accordingly, reduces and even eliminates the risk of rejection. But due to the fact that the IPC technology is still shining with novelty, science does not know whether these cells have the same potential as ESCs. That's why both materials were used during the experiment. This, by the way, made it possible to compare both approaches.

First, scientists turned pluripotent cells into a type of embryonic cells called endoderm. Subsequently, the esophagus, stomach, intestines, lungs, pancreas and liver appear from them. After the "briefing", entoblasts became precursors of intestinal cells, and the intestinal tissue itself was grown in a specially designed "pro-intestinal" system.

After 28 days, a three-dimensional tissue resembling the intestines of a human fetus was formed. It contained all the main types of intestinal cells: enterocytes, goblet cells, acidophilic enterocytes (Panet cells) and intestinal argentaffinocytes (Kulchitsky cells).

Then the tissue continued to develop and acquire both the suction and secretory functions of the normal human intestine, as well as to form intestinal stem cells.

According to the researchers, scientists around the world will be able to use this process to study the normal functioning of the intestine (for example, how a particular drug being developed is absorbed) and possible pathologies. In addition, such artificially grown tissue should become an effective implant for patients with certain diseases — for example, with shortened small intestine syndrome. This method is now being tested in Cincinnati on animals.

The results of the study are published in the journal Nature (Jason R. Spence et al., Directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells into intestinal tissue in vitro).

Prepared based on the materials of PhysOrg: Stem cells turned into complex, functioning intestinal tissue in lab.

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13.12.2010