Expansion and Maturation of Innate Lymphoid Cell Precursors Using Human iPSC-Derived Intestinal Organoids

Innate lymphoid cells (ILC) are enriched at mucosal barrier sites where they play critical roles in development and disease. Mucosal organoids offer a robust platform for the simultaneous differentiation and expansion of all subsets of mature ILC from a shared peripheral blood precursor. Critically, organoid identity drives tissue-specific imprinting of the culture-derived mature innate lymphoid cells, allowing for the study of bidirectional interactions between, e.g., intestinal organoids and intestine-specific ratios and populations of ILC. This protocol reduces the need for feeder cell lines and complex cytokine cocktails used to mature and maintain ILC, instead relying on a native niche of protein signals provided by mucosal epithelial cells. This protocol details the generation of human intestinal organoids (HIO) from human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC), and the subsequent establishment of co-cultures between HIO and ILC precursors for expansion and maturation. This approach has extensive applications for mechanistic studies of fundamental biological processes and as a potential GMP-compatible source of ILC for future cell therapies.