快猫短视频

Making tissue patches from the cells found in a healthy intestine could one day treat certain digestive conditions, according to a study in mice.

The tube-shaped intestines in our bodies contain an inner layer of cells that absorb nutrients from digested food. This is surrounded by a layer of muscle that contracts in multiple ways to mix and break down food while pushing it further along the digestive system.

To investigate the possibility of transplanting cells from healthy intestines, at Stanford University, California, and her colleagues extracted cells from the small intestines of mice, which they seeded onto 27 protein-rich gel patches, each measuring 1-centimetre across. The patches were bathed in nutrient solutions for the month-long experiment.

Ten days after the patches were assembled, 22 of them started to open and close like clam shells, similar to a type of contraction that mixes food with digestive enzymes in our intestine, says Wang.

Another three of the patches contracted in a wave-like fashion that would push food further along an intestine, says Wang. The remaining two patches contracted to form small pouches that scrunched up.

鈥淚t鈥檚 unclear why some patches contracted in different ways,鈥� says Wang.

To test whether such contractions could mix and break down the contents of an intestine, the team fed the clam shell-like muscle patches a flour-based artificial food.

Within 30 seconds, the patches completely broke down 3-millimetre-wide clumps of this food. In contrast, the artificial food stayed intact when added to control gel patches that weren鈥檛 seeded with the synthetic intestinal cells.

鈥淚t鈥檚 the first time synthetic intestinal muscle has been shown to contract so strongly that it can actually mix and break down intestinal contents,鈥� says Wang.

If we could take intestinal cells from people and grow them into large patches that attach to the inner layer of the intestine, we could provide synthetic implants for treating conditions such as short bowel syndrome, says Wang. This is when a person has a short intestine, leading to poor nutrient absorption.

鈥淐urrently, people with short bowel syndrome are treated by feeding a tube carrying nutrients into the heart, which can lead to liver failure and infections,鈥� says at University College London. 鈥淪ynthetic implants could absolutely improve on that treatment in the future.鈥�

The synthetic tissue could also repair the intestines of people with bowel cancer or those with irritable bowel diseases, such as Crohn鈥檚 disease and ulcerative colitis, says Wang.

Further work needs to test the approach using human cells and to establish how you could connect the synthetic muscle to other intestinal components, such as blood vessels and nerves, says De Coppi.