Lung tissue from the lab

Date:
March 18, 2022
Source:
University of Freiburg
Summary:
An international research team has found a simple method for growing
lung tissue in the lab. These organoids could be used in diagnosis,
drug development, and fundamental research. Laboratory studies of
lung tissue usually require the removal of large amounts of human
or animal tissue.

Now scientists have generated tiny quantities of lung tissue,
so-called organoids, from just a few body cells in the lab. The
tissue forms a three-dimensional structure as it develops, complete
with the tiny hairs on the surface typical of lung tissue. These
organoids can play an important part in future research on lung
diseases, drug development, or personalized medicine.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
An international research team has found a simple method for growing
lung tissue in the lab. These organoids could be used in diagnosis,
drug development, and fundamental research.


========================================================================== Laboratory studies of lung tissue usually require the removal of large
amounts of human or animal tissue. Now scientists from the University
of Freiburg's Faculty of Medicine have succeeded in collaboration with
American researchers in generating tiny quantities of lung tissue,
so-called organoids, from just a few body cells in the lab. The tissue
forms a three-dimensional structure as it develops, complete with the
tiny hairs on the surface typical of lung tissue.

These organoids can play an important part in future research on lung
diseases, drug development, or personalized medicine. The researchers
published their method in the online version of the American Journal
of Physiology.

"The method we developed for growing lung tissue is simple and inexpensive
and is very good at reproducing important biological aspects," says the Freiburg lead investigator Dr. Peter Walentek, Emmy Noether research
group leader at the University of Freiburg's Faculty of Medicine and
scientist at the Medical Center -- University of Freiburg. In addition,
he is a member of the University of Freiburg's Cluster of Excellence
Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies. The study was
headed by scientists at the University of California in San Francisco,
USA, in close collaboration with the Freiburg researchers. They combined
lung cells with two messengers after two weeks of cultivation in the laboratory, whereupon the stem cells were positively influenced and
the organoids formed. Until now, this process involved many steps. For
example, cells that had been removed first had to be brought into an embryo-like state by means of complicated methods. Furthermore, until
now the outside of the tissue in such organoids was always directed
inward and was much less like the natural model.

Organoids enable individual planning of therapies Cells from patients
with the lung disease cystic fibrosis led to the development of characteristically altered organoids in the lab. "In the future, this uncomplicated method might even allow us to grow the tissue of individual
lung patients in the lab, in order to hopefully test in advance whether a therapy is effective or not," says Walentek. In addition, the scientists
can use the organoid to study how healthy lung tissue develops and
precisely how genetic changes affect, for example, the formation of the
tiny hair-like structures known as cilia. "The malformation of these
cilia leads not only to lung diseases but also, among other things, to
genetic kidney diseases, which we are investigating at the Collaborative Research Center NephGen (SFB1453)," says Walentek.

Method offers alternative to animal models Until now, the healthy
development of lung tissue and genetic lung diseases were often studied
in animal models. The newly established method should be able to replace
some of these studies: "Growing tissue in its natural three- dimensional
form in the lab is an important way to reduce the use of animals in
research. This is another reason why this research is so important,"
says Prof.

Dr. Lutz Hein, Dean of the University of Freiburg Faculty of Medicine.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Freiburg. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Carolin A. Boecking, Peter Walentek, Lorna T. Zlock, Dingyuan
I. Sun,
Paul J. Wolters, Hiroaki Ishikawa, Byung-Ju Jin, Peter M. Haggie,
Wallace F. Marshall, Alan S. Verkman, Walter E. Finkbeiner. A
simple method to generate human airway epithelial organoids
with externally orientated apical membranes. American Journal of
Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, 2022; 322 (3):
L420 DOI: 10.1152/ajplung.00536.2020 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220318161425.htm

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