The intestine is an essential organ of the human body. Commonly called “the second brain” in recent years, he has had his own nervous system which controls many functions but which can also be the cause of many diseases when it malfunctions.
In order to better study these digestive diseases, Inserm researchers associated with American researchers from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center cultivated human intestinal tissue with nerve cells and created a functional human intestine.
These mini-intestines were implanted in mice
The process was almost the same as that used in 2010 and 2014 by the same laboratory that had succeeded in developing the very first generation of human intestinal tissue. But the first-generation tissues lacked an enteric nervous system, the one that is essential for the absorption of nutrients and the evacuation of wastes through the digestive tract.
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This time, the researchers created nerve cells at the embryonic stage and co-cultured them with the intestinal tissue, resulting in human tissue resembling the developing fetal gut. These “mini-intestines” were then implanted in mice, which allowed scientists to study Hirschsprung’s disease, a rare bowel disease in which the rectum and colon do not develop a nervous system, resulting in constipation and bowel obstruction.
“Our work marks an essential step in the understanding of digestive diseases in humans where few models are present. This technology is only in its early stages but a perspective of regenerative and personalized medicine is possible, in particular with a view to the transplantation of a specific intestine for each patient “ said Maxime Mahé, co-author of the study.
Details of this work are published in the journal Nature Medicine.
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