Regenerative Medicine

Modern regeneration medicine aims to replace the diseased tissues with corresponding healthy tissues through allogeneic transplantation. However, for a long time, insufficient supply of healthy donor tissues and innate immune rejection have challenged the survival and function of transplanted tissues in recipient patients. Organoid technology enables researchers to develop isogenic or human lymphocyte antigen-matched organoids from minuscule amounts of patient biopsy tissues or readily accessible tissues.

Organoids are miniaturized, self-organized three-dimensional (3D) tissue units that can mimic the structural, chemical, and physiological elements of the tissue environment in vivo. Due to their potential and practical uses, such as drug screening and toxicology, tumor models for cancer diagnosis, and models for human development and diseases, research involving organoids is currently one of the hottest and rapidly expanding fields.

Despite the extensive use of organoids in basic research, their translational biomedical applications are currently limited to drug testing and initial cell replacement strategies. Organoids hold a huge potential in regenerative medicine purposes if the current limitations are overcome, namely, 1) clonal variation, developmental stage, pluri-/multi-potency, and chromosomal stability of stem cells; 2) reproducibility, accuracy, and scalability of the methods proposed; 3) meaningful functional evaluation of the resulting organoids; and 4) preclinical validation. Only by conveniently addressing these limitations can organoid technology be readily translated into novel approaches for the replacement of severely damaged organs, such as the pancreas in patients with type 1 diabetes for instance.

References

1. Kaoud, Hussein Abdel hay El-Sayed. Chapter 7 hiPSC-Based Tissue Organoid Regeneration. Tissue Regeneration, 2018.
2. Yoo, J. J. et al.; Applications of Organoids for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. Tissue Eng Regen Med. 2020, 17: 729-730.
3. Nakamura, T. et al.; Advancing Intestinal Organoid Technology Toward Regenerative Medicine. Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, 2018, 5(1): 51-60.
4. Vives, J. et al.; The challenge of developing human 3D organoids into medicines. Stem Cell Research & Therapy, 2020, 11(1): 72.
5. Grassi, L. et al.; Organoids as a new model for improving regenerative medicine and cancer personalized therapy in renal diseases. Cell Death & Disease, 2019, 10(3): 201.