#paneth cells

[bpod-bpod]

Making Perfect Copies

Organoids, or ‘mini-organs’, have become a common way to try and understand how organs and tissues function in a lab setting. Several organoids are available which mimic different organs, but many fall short of replicating the original exactly. That's the case for intestinal organoids – where some important cell types are absent. For example, Paneth cells, important for preventing infections, are missing or rare. Researchers have now optimised how to make intestinal organoids (pictured) so they appear and function even more like a human gut. By adding a molecule called interleukin-22 to the organoids, Paneth cells (red) were activated alongside other key cell types of the gut, like endocrine cells (magenta) and goblet cells (green). These optimised organoids more closely mimic a healthy intestine and provide an even better way to study and understand how the gut functions properly, and what happens when things go wrong.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Image from work by Gui-Wei He and Lin Lin, and colleagues

Oncode Institute, Hubrecht Institute, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and University Medical Center, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Research published in Cell Stem Cell, August 2022

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Intestinal metaplasia in stomach

[currentsinbiology]

Novel mechanism for Crohn's disease uncovered              

Crohn's disease is one of a family of chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). While it has already been proven to have genetic causes, scientists have now shown that the presence of certain intestinal bacteria also plays a role. A study reported in the Gut journal has shown that in mice, bacterial imbalance in the gut can lead to an inflammation similar to Crohn's disease, and this can be transmitted to other animals. With this knowledge, researchers plan to further develop the existing practice of transplanting "healthy" bacteria into patients' intestines and establish this as a conventional treatment for Crohn's disease.

Researchers at Technische Universität München (TUM) have now shown that an unfavorable configuration of bacterial networks in the gut really can cause inflammation. As part of the study, they transplanted the intestinal microbiome from sick animals into the intestines of germ-free mice. These mice developed symptoms specific to Crohn's disease in their small intestine.

"Although we used mice that had an increased genetic disposition towards Crohn's-type inflammation, they did not develop symptoms until we implanted the intestinal bacteria of affected animals," explains Prof. Dirk Haller, TUM Chair of Nutrition and Immunology.

Publication:Dysbiotic gut microbiota causes transmissible Crohn's disease-like ileitis independent of failure in antimicrobial defence; Monika Schaubeck, Thomas Clavel, Jelena Calasan, Ilias Lagkouvardos, Sven Bastiaan Haange, Nico Jehmlich, Martin von Bergen, Aline Dupont, Mathias Hornef, Marijana Basic, André Bleich, Dirk Haller; Gut Published Online First; DOI:10.1136/gutjnl-2015-309333: http://gut.bmj.com/content/early/2015/04/16/gutjnl-2015-309333

Caption: The images show Paneth cells in the small intestine. These cells play an important role in immune defense. In mice with Crohn's-type inflammation, the Paneth cells produce less lysozyme, an important anti-microbial enzyme. Left: Healthy cells producing high levels of lysozyme (light green); right: Damaged Paneth cells producing low levels of lysozyme. Credit: M. Schaubeck / TUM).

[currentsinbiology]

Specialized intestinal cells cause some cases of Crohn's disease

Scientists have discovered that Crohn's disease, the inflammatory bowel disorder, can originate from specialised intestinal cell type called Paneth cells. As such, they propose that small intestinal Crohn's disease might be a specific disorder of this cell type, providing a possible new target for treatments. The study, by researchers from the University of Cambridge and Harvard University, was published today in the journal Nature.

"If we are able to break down Crohn's disease into subsets by understanding the underlying mechanisms, which we have done here, we hope to develop much more targeted, effective treatments," said Professor Arthur Kaser from the University of Cambridge, one of the lead authors of the paper. "The discovery of the Paneth cells' role in inflammation of the bowel also raises the possibility of entirely novel therapeutic approaches."