Intestinal Organoids: Stem Cell Isolation to Functional Assays

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editor

Jasmin Ballout

Jasmin.Ballout@vetmed.uni-giessen.de

Dr. Jasmin Ballout studied veterinary medicine at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany. In 2019 she finished her doctoral thesis about neuro-immune interactions in the gastrointestinal tract in the context of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) at the Institute for Veterinary Physiology and Biochemistry, JLU Giessen. Currently, she is working as a Postdoc in the group of Professor Martin Diener at the same institute. She established a murine organoid model in the lab to study inflammatory processes at the intestinal epithelium as an alternative for animal enteritis models. Crucial aspects of this topic are the effects of proinflammatory cytokines on ion secretion and epithelial barrier focusing on functional studies like live imaging and electrophysiology. Cocultures of intestinal organoids with neuronal or immune cells will be the next step to elucidate the cell-cell interactions under inflammatory conditions in vitro. Further current research interests are purinergic and short-chain fatty acid signalling at the large intestine or Notch signalling in lung carcinoma cells. Since 2022, Dr Jasmin Ballout has been a veterinary specialist in physiology and is currently in further education to become a veterinary specialist in laboratory animal science.

Collection Overview

Stem cell-derived intestinal organoids share the same morphology as the intestinal epithelium and mimic organotypic functions, such as secretory processes and maintenance of the epithelial barrier. Due to their ability to replicate the physiology of native tissue, which classical cell lines cannot achieve, and in line with the 3R principle, intestinal organoids are increasingly becoming a focus of research. Once established in the lab, they are an easily applicable tool that can be used to study cell-cell interactions and signalling, drug effects, or the genetic and pathophysiological background of diseases related to this organ.

This Methods Collection aims to share standardized protocols for working with intestinal organoids, highlighting the following topics:

Isolation of intestinal stem cells and establishment of 3D organoid cultures from different species
Cocultures with intestinal organoids
Functional assays such as live cell imaging and electrophysiology
Additional techniques focused on intestinal organoids