Challenges to, and prospects for, reverse engineering the gastrointestinal tract using organoids

Abstract

For over a decade, organoids mimicking the development, physiology, and disease of the digestive system have been a topic of broad interest and intense study. Establishing organoid models that recapitulate all distinct regions of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) has proven challenging since each tissue surrogate requires tailor-made modifications of the original protocol to generate intestinal organoids. In this review, we discuss the challenges and current advances of the GIT organoid models. Moreover, we envision the next-generation GIT organoids as integrated organoid models, able to recapitulate structural and functional characteristics of multiple regions of the digestive tube in a single in vitro model. We discuss these new trends and provide an outlook for the future of GIT in vitro models.

Keywords: co-culture; gastrointestinal tract; multiregion organoids; organoid fusion; organoid-on-a-chip; organoids.