In this publication, MIMETAS and Roche scientists report growing over 350 gut tubules under flow that formed leak-tight structures and could be interrogated for intestinal barrier function in real-time using automated microscopy and image analysis.
The intestinal tubules were polarised and leak-tight after only 4 days in culture and showed increased expression of specific transporters and receptors.
This gut model lends itself to assess toxicology and transport of oncological and other compounds, as well as disease modelling studies and fundamental research on the intestinal barrier.
Paul Vulto, Managing Director of MIMETAS and senior author on the paper, said: “This article in a major journal shows the world what the OrganoPlate platform is capable of. With 350 gut tubes and over 20,000 data points measured, this is the largest organ-on-a-chip dataset ever published.
It demonstrates that 3D cell culture under perfusion flow is not necessarily complex to do. In fact, every cell biologist is now able to work with OrganoPlates and reproduce our results.
"Scientists at MIMETAS and elsewhere around the world are developing stunning 3-D cell culture models in the OrganoPlate platform every day. The fact that one can culture tubules, blood vessels, and tissue co-cultures in 3-D, without artificial membranes and with an unprecedented imaging quality, enables researchers to study human tissue biology in a completely novel way.
"We are proud to support these fantastic scientists in their search for ever more physiologically relevant tissue models. We are now making this technology available to every scientist in the world."