Scientists from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have used pluripotent stem cells to engineer human stomach tissues that produce acid and digestive enzymes. This, along with the ability to engineer the stomach’s hormone-producing region, the antrum, which the same team showed two years ago, will allow investigators to grow both parts of the human stomach to study disease, model new treatments and understand human development and health in ways never before possible.
The research is published online Jan. 4/2017 in Nature.
“Now that we can grow both antral- and corpus/fundic-type human gastric mini-organs, it’s possible to study how these human gastric tissues interact physiologically, respond differently to infection, injury and react to pharmacologic treatments,” said Jim Wells, PhD, principal investigator and director of the Pluripotent Stem Cell Facility at Cincinnati Children’s. “Diseases of the stomach impact millions of people in the United States and gastric cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide.”
Source & further reading:https://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/news/release/2017/stem-cells-generate-human-stomach
Paper:http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v541/n7636/full/nature21021.html
Image: This confocal microscopic image shows tissue-engineered human stomach tissues from the corpus/fundus region, which produce acid and digestive enzymes.
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