Study provides novel platform to study how SARS-CoV-2 affects the gut
Original article from Medical XPress , 2021
How could studying gastrointestinal cells help the fight against COVD-19, which is a respiratory disease? According to a team led by Gustavo Mostoslavsky, MD, Ph.D., at the BU/BMC Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) and Elke Mühlberger, Ph.D., from the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) at Boston University, testing how SARS-CoV-2 affects the gut can potentially serve to test novel therapeutics for COVID-19.
In order to study SARS-CoV-2, models are needed that can duplicate disease development in humans, identify potential targets and enable drug testing. BU researchers have created human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC)-derived intestinal organoids or 3D models that can be infected and replicated with SARS-CoV-2.
iPSC are stem cells derived from the donated skin or blood cells that are reprogrammed back to an embryonic stem cell-like state and then can be developed into any cell type in the body.
“Human induced pluripotent stem cell derived intestinal organoids represent an inexhaustible cellular resource that could serve as a valuable tool to study SARS-CoV-2, as well as other intestinal viruses that infect the intestinal epithelium,” explained corresponding author Mostoslavsky, associate professor of microbiology at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and co-director of the CReM.