Experimental Modeling of Necrotizing Enterocolitis in Human Infant Intestinal Enteroids

There are several limitations when using a single cell culture to recapitulate the findings in a complex organism and results often vary between species, when proxy animal models are studied.

Human enteroids have allowed for study of human disease in complex multicellular culture systems. Here we present the novel use of human infant enteroids generated from premature infant intestine to study necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), which is a devastating intestinal disorder that affects our most vulnerable pediatric population.

We demonstrate that NEC can be induced in premature human enteroids as supported by corresponding alterations in inflammation, apoptosis, tight junction expression, and permeability by treatment with lipopolysaccharide.