The word
"organoid" refers to a tiny and simplified version of an organ grown in a lab. It is created by scientists using cells that can mimic the structure and function of a particular organ in the body.
Organoids help scientists study diseases, test drugs, and understand how organs work without the need for human or animal testing.
Full definition
Implanting human
brain organoids in a mouse brain gives them everything they need to grow and develop.
Researchers exposed another set
of organoids derived from the same Alzheimer's patients to experimental compounds known to prevent the secretion or accumulation of amyloid, and they discovered that the plaques didn't form.
Contrary to Song's assumption, for instance, another leading scientist has reportedly connected brain
organoids in a dish to retinal cells, which perceive light and therefore produce vision.
By growing
organoids from tumor samples, researchers can create minitumors and use them to study how cancer develops or to test drugs.
Meanwhile, others in Clevers» lab were using similar techniques to
grow organoids of the stomach, pancreas, prostate, breast and liver.
Self - organized
cerebral organoids with human - specific features predict effective drugs to combat Zika virus infection.
That would be getting close to the number of cells in a mouse brain,» raising the distant prospect of a human brain
organoid with cognitive and even emotional capacities, all while sitting in a lab dish.
However, despite its marked promise for disease modeling, development of novel therapies, and regenerative medicine, stem cell
derived organoid technology faces many remaining challenges.
Recently, scientists developed a procedure for generating pituitary cells from human pluripotent stem cells — an unlimited cell source for regenerative medicine —
using organoid cultures that mimic the 3D organization of the developing pituitary gland.
Thirdly, the current, almost universal dependency of
organoid culture on the use of Matrigel as a replacement for the function of the extracellular basement matrix in providing structural support and survival signals to the epithelial cells hampers clinical application, considering its origin from a mouse sarcoma cell line, its poorly defined composition and its mechanical rigidity after plating.
He and McKay have already used the platform to launch their own projects, creating brain
organoid models of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and autism in a dish.
But when the researchers used live microscopy to watch how the 4 - millimeter - wide
organoids developed, they noticed that human progenitor cells took 50 % longer than those of the other great apes to arrange their chromosomes before splitting into daughter cells.
The team used pancreatic
organoid technology developed in the lab of Professor David Tuveson, Director of CSHL's Cancer Center and Director of Research for the Lustgarten Foundation.
But, he says, mini-brains are «by far the most complex structures that have been grown
as organoids.»
The cells were grown
into organoids, essentially mini-brains in a dish.
Researchers have grown them from many different organs; they have also
created organoids from tumor cells to mimic cancers.
Thus, this project will create a pre-clinical fundamental for the development of a new direction of cell therapy — transplantation of thymic stem cells
organoid for the restoration of thymus and the immune system of patients.
The researchers were able to
make organoids from three patients both before and after treatment.
The Hubrecht lab is also involved in two trials to assess whether colon
cancer organoids grown from individual patients can predict drug response.
Unlike the micro-hearts, these are made from random clumps of cells
called organoids which make them less like the real thing.
«This work provides a proof of principle for using stem cell - derived human
intestinal organoids in a therapeutic setting.»
In just a few days, a spherical
organoid forms that measures just a quarter of a millimeter across and is suitable for use in research.
Cystic fibrosis patient Els van der Heijden received a new drug combination based
on organoid tests.
Marcus» lab is now testing whether similar approaches could work when studying
tumor organoids derived from cancer patients, either using Dendra or with photo - convertible dyes.
The
infected organoids grew to only 40 percent of those that were not exposed to the virus.
A new BJS (British Journal of Surgery) review highlights the potential of
3D organoid models derived from patient cells to help personalize therapy for individuals with gastrointestinal cancers.
This confocal microscopic image shows a human
colon organoid generated in the laboratory with human pluripotent stem cells.
This symposium will bring together researchers from different fields to enhance our understanding of
how organoids can be formed and maintained, how they can be used to study disease and how we might eventually use them to regenerate and replace human organ tissue.
But «vascularization» of cerebral
organoids also raises such troubling ethical concerns that, previously, the lab paused its efforts to even try it.
Finally, they show that miR - 142 inhibition reduces breast cancer
organoid formation, while miR - 142 and miR - 150 over-expression alters mammary gland organization.
Because organoids can be generated with high efficiency and speed from patient samples, they can serve as a personal cancer model that can guide clinical decision - making.
Note: Dr. Sylvia Boj, Foundation
Hubrecht Organoid Technology, Utrecht, The Netherlands, is acknowledged for critical reading of the manuscript.
An in vivo maturation step mediates the generation of
organoids resembling mature intestinal tissue from human pluripotent stem cells
«We are who we are because we have experiences, and brain
organoids do not have sensory inputs.»
First, most currently
generated organoids mainly contain epithelial cells and are void of the many different cell types that are essential for the morphology and functionality of the whole organ.
Importantly, these endometrial
organoids respond to the female hormones in a way similar to the endometrium in the body, allowing scientists to mimic the menstrual cycle in a dish.
In vivo functional engraftment has already been demonstrated for intestinal, liver, salivary, kidney and beta - cell enriched
pancreatic organoids in mouse models (2,18).
More notably, the human
organoids implanted into mice connected to the rodent's circulatory system, making this the first reported vascularization.
Differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells into
colonic organoids via transient activation of BMP signaling.
«There is another concern about «embryoids,» which are a special class of
organoid containing all three layers of embryonic tissue: the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm,» says Koehler.
«Zika Virus Depletes Neural Progenitors in Human Cerebral
Organoids Through Activation of the Innate Immune Receptor TLR3,» by Jason Dang et al., Cell Stem Cell, August 2016.
This may make
organoids more suitable for rapid, high - volume screening of potential treatments in drug development and the practice of personalized medicine.
The work also speaks to a new direction in
organoid research, in which single - cell RNA sequencing provides a detailed look at the cross-talk between the different cell types involved.
But the current gels used for
organoid growth are derived from mice, and have problems.
Made from gelatin - based biomaterials and seeded with living cells, the synthetic
organoid mimics lymph nodes and stimulates B cells, according to a June study in Biomaterials.
Shen, who is also a member of NewYork - Presbyterian / CUIMC's Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, began developing bladder cancer
organoids about four years ago.
SEngine Precision Medicine, instead, is pursuing an innovative approach for the development of novel targets and drugs for cancer therapy by using primary
patient organoids initially derived for our diagnostic assay.