Scientists working to bioengineer the entire human gastrointestinal system in a laboratory now report using pluripotent stem cells to grow human esophageal organoids.

Published in the journal Cell Stem Cell the study is the latest advancement from researchers at the Cincinnati Children’s Center for Stem Cell and Organoid Medicine (CuSTOM). The center is developing new ways to study birth defects and diseases that affect millions of people with gastrointestinal disorders, such as gastric reflux, cancer, etc. The work is leading to new personalized diagnostic methods and focused in part on developing regenerative tissue therapies to treat or cure GI disorders.

The newly published research is the first time scientists have been able to grow human esophageal tissue entirely from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), which can form any tissue type in the body, according to the authors. Cincinnati Children’s scientists and their multi-institutional collaborators already have used PSCs to bioengineer human intestine, stomach, colon and liver.

“Disorders of the esophagus and trachea are prevalent enough in people that organoid models of human esophagus could be greatly beneficial,” said Jim Wells, PhD, chief scientific officer at CuSTOM and study lead investigator. “In addition to being a new model to study birth defects like esophageal atresia, the organoids can be used to study diseases like eosinophilic esophagitis and Barrett’s metaplasia, or to bioengineer genetically matched esophageal tissue for individual patients.”

The study involves collaboration from researchers in the divisions of Developmental Biology, Oncology, Allergy and Immunology, and Endocrinology at Cincinnati Children’s and the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco. This includes study first author Stephen Trisno, a graduate student and member of the Wells laboratory. 

The Food Channel

The esophagus is a muscular tube that actively passes food from the mouth to the stomach. The organ can be affected by congenital diseases, such as esophageal atresia—a narrowing or malformation of the esophagus caused by genetic mutations.

Additionally, there are several diseases that can afflict people later in life. Some include esophageal cancer, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), or a rare ailment called achalasia—a disease affecting the muscles of the lower esophagus that prevents contraction of the organ and the passage of food.

All of the conditions need better treatments, researchers note. This requires a more precise understanding of the genetic and biochemical mechanisms behind their cause—a need filled by the ability to generate and study robust, functional, genetically matched models of human esophageal tissue that can be grown from a person’s own cells.

Tracing Nature’s Path

The scientists based their new method for using human PSCs to generate esophageal organoids on precisely timed, step-by-step manipulations of genetic and biochemical signals that pattern and form embryonic endoderm and foregut tissues. They focused in part on the gene Sox2 and its associated protein—which are already known to trigger esophageal conditions when their function is disrupted. The scientists used mice, frogs and human tissue cultures to identify other genes and molecular pathways regulated by Sox2 during esophagus formation.