[AIDS and intestinal opportunistic protozoan infections]

This protocol describes a mouse model of Salmonella driven intestinal fibrosis that resembles key pathological hallmarks of Crohn’s disease including transmural inflammation and fibrosis. This method can be used to evaluate host factors that alter fibrotic outcomes using mutant mice maintained on a C57Bl/6 genetic...

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are becoming a widely-used vertebrate animal model for microbial colonization and pathogenesis. This protocol describes the use of the protozoan Paramecium caudatum as a vehicle for food-borne infection in zebrafish larvae. P. caudatum readily internalizes bacteria and get taken up by larval zebrafish through natural preying...

This protocol explains primary Lgr5-positve organoid culture and the subsequent performance of retroviral transduction. This enables Cre-inducible overexpression or knockdown of the delivered transgene and allows functional studies to be carried out in the novel in vitro organotypic model system.

This technique provides a method to harvest, normalize and quantify intracellular growth of bacterial pathogens that are pre-cultivated in natural protozoan host cells prior to infections of mammalian cells. This method can be modified to accommodate a wide variety of host cells for the priming stage as well as target cell...

This video demonstrates a microinjection technique to develop a human intestinal organoid infection model. The infectious sporozoite stage of the parasite Cryptosporidium parvum is microinjected into the organoid lumen. Upon invading the epithelial cells of the organoid, it undergoes asexual and sexual reproduction to complete its life cycle and spreads the...

Although digestion of proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids may begin in the stomach, it is completed in the intestine. The absorption of nutrients, water, and electrolytes from food and drink also occurs in the intestine. The intestines can be divided into two structurally distinct organs—the small and large intestines.
Small Intestines
The small intestine is an ~7 meter-long tube with an inner diameter of just 2.5 cm. Since most nutrients are absorbed here, the inner lining of the...