A human 'mini-gut-on-a-chip' to study microbial-epithelial cell interactions

Human organoids are 3D fragments of adult tissues and ideally conserve all of the (stem) cell types and recapitulate all of the (patho)physiological processes associated with human health and disease. Although current organoid culture systems fulfil most of these criteria they suffer from being enveloped in a closed, static environment which conflicts with the in vivo situation. Therefore, we have been developing a novel dynamic human 'mini-gut-on-a-chip' system that preserves access to the pseudo gut lumen for microbial co-cultures while the epithelial lining is sustained by a perfusion system analogous to peripheral blood. Mechanical contractions will also be imposed to mimic peristalsis. The project will develop the human 'mini-gut-on-a-chip' system and use it to investigate the molecular mechanisms and physiological consequences of microbial-epithelial cell interactions and luminal-sensing in the human gut.