GI highlights from the literature

Basic scienceNovel experimental model of colorectal cancer tumourigenesis Chen HJ, Wei Z, Sun J, et al. A recellularized human colon model identifies cancer driver genes. Nat Biotechnol 2016;34:845–51. Modelling human colonic cancer is challenging. Cell lines, organoids and animal models provide some understanding, but they all have major flaws. This recent paper has described a model of the human colon using recellularised matrix colonised with other native cells to reconstruct the colon and maintain it in viable culture for long enough to perform meaningful experiments. The process of recellularisation began with treating a 5 cm3 piece of resected human colon with powerful detergents to create a matrix containing <5% of original DNA content. The mucosa and submucosa were separated to allow access to the empty crypt space. The authors immortalised normal human colonic epithelial organoids, endothelial cells and myofibroblasts with human telomere reverse transcriptase to prevent senescence....

Source: Gut - October 6, 2016 Category: Gastroenterology Authors: McLean, M. H. Tags: JournalScan Source Type: research