Organoid cocktail
Scientists have grown a heart organoid with intestinal cells
Tatiana Matveeva, "Scientific Russia"
American scientists have obtained a new type of organoid that contains both heart and intestinal cells. With its help, researchers will be able to study how developing tissues interact with each other, the press service of the Gladstone Institute (USA) reports. The results are published in the journal Cell Stem Cell (Silva et al., Co-emergence of cardiac and gut tissues promotes cardiomyocyte maturation within human iPSC-derived organoids).
At the earliest stages of a new human life, cells – at first identical – begin to divide into separate types and eventually form a variety of tissues and organs. During this process, neighboring tissues exchange chemical signals that encourage each other to different stages of development. But how exactly does this communication happen? This process is very dynamic and difficult to study.
A new type of organoids, which Gladstone scientists obtained by chance, will help to understand. They created cardiac organoids from pluripotent stem cells, which are usually grown in various "cocktails" of nutrients. In the "classic" the cocktail mainly produces heart muscle cells. This time, the scientists tried a different cocktail to get more heart cells.
The team found that in a number of cases, organoids containing not only heart cells, but also intestinal cells are obtained in the new cocktail.
Microscopic image of a new type of organoid in which the tissue of the heart (red, purple and orange clusters of cells) and the intestine (blue and green) are fused – VM.
"We were intrigued because organoids usually turn into one type of tissue – for example, only into heart tissue," says Ana Silva, one of the authors of the work. "Here, the tissues of the heart and intestines were fused in a controlled manner, as in a normal embryo."
The new organoids formed more complex structures of the heart: some resembled more mature blood vessels. Types and proportions of cardiac cells in new organoids, as well as their electrical properties (the ability to conduct electrical impulses) they were very similar to those in the real heart of the embryo. The cells in ordinary organoids, which do not contain intestinal tissue, stop at a much earlier stage of their transformation into heart cells.
Scientists have also shown that the intestinal tissue in the new organoids has turned into many recognizable structures and cell types, especially in the small intestine. Moreover, the intestinal and heart cells in the new organoids secrete chemicals that are involved in the transmission of signals between the two tissues during the development of the heart.
The new organoids have "lived" in a Petri dish for more than a year, which is a very long time – especially for large three-dimensional clusters of cells. This suggests that similar organoids can be grown as reliable systems for long-term laboratory studies. And although organoids cannot fully capture every detail of the actual development of the heart and intestines, they can be used to see how cells work together. And to find out, for example, why this or that developmental failure occurred and congenital diseases developed.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru