Title:Modeling Inflammatory Bowel Disease by Intestinal Organoids
Volume: 17
Issue: 1
Author(s): Cristina Di Giorgio*, Rosalinda Roselli, Michele Biagioli, Martina Bordoni, Patrizia Ricci, Angela Zampella, Eleonora Distrutti, Annibale Donini and Stefano Fiorucci
Affiliation:
- Dipartimento di Medicina e Chirurgia, Università di Perugia; Perugia, Italy
Keywords:
Organoids, IBD, inflammation, target therapy, microbiota, immune system.
Abstract: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic and relapsing disease caused by a
dysregulated immune response to host intestinal microbiota that occurs in genetically predisposed
individuals. IBD encompasses two major clinical entities: ulcerative colitis (UC), limited to the
colonic mucosa, and Crohn's disease (CD), which might affect any segment of the gastrointestinal
tract. Despite the prevalence of IBD increasing worldwide, therapy remains suboptimal, largely
because of the variability of causative mechanisms, raising the need to develop individualized
therapeutic approaches targeted to each individual patient. In this context, patients-derived intestinal
organoids represent an effective tool for advancing our understanding of IBD’s pathogenesis.
Organoid 3D culture systems offer a unique model for dissecting epithelial mechanisms involved
IBDs and testing individualized therapy, although the lack of a functional immune system and a
microbiota, two driving components of the IBD pathogenesis, represent a major barrier to their
exploitation in clinical medicine. In this review, we have examined how to improve the translational
utility of intestinal organoids in IBD and how co-cultures of 3D or 2D organoids and immune
cells and/or intestinal microbiota might help to overcome these limitations.