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The experiment that invented organoids: a single intestinal stem cell, given three growth factors in a gel, grew into a miniature gut lining that could be kept alive indefinitely, a method since extended to tumours from individual patients.
Sato, Clevers and colleagues at the Hubrecht Institute showed that single Lgr5-positive stem cells from the mouse small intestine, embedded in Matrigel with EGF, Noggin and R-spondin 1 and no supporting mesenchyme, form self-organising structures with crypt and villus domains containing all the differentiated cell types of the gut. The organoids could be passaged for over eight months without losing their properties. The method was soon adapted to human tissue and to tumours, creating patient-derived organoids for drug testing.
Organoids from patients' tumours are now used to test drugs before treatment, to model rare cancers and to study resistance. Every one of those systems descends from this culture method.
Shares Organoid-guided therapy at scale, Patient-derived organoids, Colorectal cancer.
Shares Organoid-guided therapy at scale, Patient-derived organoids.
Shares Organoid-guided therapy at scale, Patient-derived organoids.
Shares UMC Utrecht Cancer Center, Patient-derived organoids.