Nicole Prior, Nikitas Georgakopoulos & Meritxell Huch
Dr. Nicole Prior is a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Meritxell Huch at the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge and Max Planck institute in Dresden. Nikitas Georgakopoulos is a shared PhD student in the laboratories of Dr. Meritxell Huch and Dr. Kourosh Saeb-Parsy at the Department of Surgery, University of Cambridge. Dr Meritxell Huch is a Lise Meitner Max Planck Research Group leader at the Max Planck institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. The focus of their research is to develop pancreas and liver organoid technologies and use these to answer fundamental questions about how these organs function and how organoids can be utilised for disease modeling and therapeutic purposes.
Human Pancreas Organoids: A step closer to understanding biology & treating disease
Authors of this recent paper published in BMC Developmental Biology, present a new way of studying what goes on within the pancreas by generating “human pancreas organoids”. Using cells taken from a human pancreas, the authors create self-assembled tissue-like structures that mimic the human pancreas at a much simpler level, helping us understand the development, form and function of the organ. In this study, they are not only able to generate these “mini” pancreas organoids, but go further in being able to propagate them over long periods of time with sustained genetic stability. They hope that this cell-derived technology will help breakdown the cellular and tissue-level processes that occur over time, to deepen our understanding towards better therapeutic interventions, tackling problems at grassroots of pancreas-driven disease like diabetes, pancreatic cancer and much more. These and similar cell-derived technologies will take us towards a deeper understanding and better treatments of disease.
Organoids represent a new technology for the organ-specific tissue culture of cells in a 3D extracellular matrix (ECM). This results in the formation of 3D cell-clusters which replicate many organ-of-origin characteristics. Current efforts to develop human organoid models will help us understand more about how our organs are formed and function and how to help in cases where diseases occur.
In our study, published in BMC Developmental Biology we describe the generation of human pancreas organoids (hPOs) and show how they could be used in future research. The pancreas is located alongside the stomach and plays a critical role in our digestive system. Three main cell types are found in the pancreas; 1) endocrine cells which reside in the islets of Langerhans and produce hormones including insulin that control sugar metabolism in our bodies, 2) acinar cells which produce digestive enzymes and 3) pancreatic ductal cells that form ducts (highlighted in figure 1) to collect the digestive enzymes and transport them to the small intestine to aid with the breakdown of food.
Malfunction of these cells is associated with a series of pancreatic diseases. Pancreatic cancer can affect any of these cell types and has the lowest survival rate in the UK among all cancer types. Diabetes is the most common disease of the endocrine compartment and affects over 4 million people in the UK. Other serious diseases, although perhaps less well known, include pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas), cystic fibrosis (which affects ductal cells) and pancreatic insufficiency (reduced acinar cell function). Severe cases of pancreatic disease often leave patients with the need for a pancreas or islet cell transplant deriving from deceased organ donors. However, the greatest hurdles to pancreas transplants include a limited number of organ donors and a need for life-time immunosuppression.
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