New culturing method for liver and pancreas developed

A BREAKTHROUGH culturing system for human liver and pancreatic stem cells developed by researchers at the Hubrecht Institute and the University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht may provide the solution for keeping and multiplying healthy or diseased tissue from patients in laboratory conditions. 

The revolutionary culturing technique, which is discussed in two articles in this week’s edition of Cell magazine, could enable cultured stem cells to be used to replace donor organs for transplantation in the future. The cultured stem cells could also help expand research work on 'personalized medicine', or medication prescription specifically targeted at individual patients.

From describing in 2009 a revolutionary culturing method that allowed the culturing of mini-guts from single mouse intestine stem cells, organoids that are functional miniature organs that can grow in tissue culture, the research group has developed a culturing system for liver stem cells and stem cells from pancreatic cancer to their record. The study was led by Hans Clevers, professor of Molecular Genetics at the Hubrecht Institute/UMC Utrecht and president of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

The technology can be used for long-term laboratory replication of minute amounts of tissue harvested from a healthy or diseased liver. This means the equivalent of a full-grown liver can be cultured from a single liver stem cell over a period of four months, with the cultured tissue being very stable and genetically the same as the healthy liver tissue based on analyses.

The technology is also a potential solution to the global shortage of donor livers. A first step leading to the use of cultured liver tissue in replacing donor livers for transplantation is the successful transplantation in mice with liver damage of the cultured human ‘mini-livers.” 

Further, the technology offers future potential for personalized medicine. Organoids could be grown from the tissue of patients suffering from genetic liver diseases. These can then be used for testing drugs before administration to patients themselves. 

The culturing technique developed by the research group would also allow for the long-term laboratory culturing of healthy and diseased pancreatic stem cells, which was not possible before. Pancreatic cancer, which is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, has no effective therapy at present. Only 6% of patients survive for over five years.  

The study, which involved one of the world’s leading lights in the field of pancreatic cancer, David Tuveson of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, reveals that the sensitivity or resistance of the tumor tissue of individual patients to a wide range of cancer drugs can be determined in the laboratory. This means the method can be used to prescribe individualized therapy for each cancer patient.

The technology was used to create a ‘Living Biobank’ of cultured pancreatic tumors from a large group of patients with pancreatic cancer. This allows the culturing of organoids from multiple patients, which in turn can be used for studying larger populations. 

The biobank, which was established with support from the Dutch Cancer Society/Stand up to Cancer, is open to cancer researchers and companies worldwide that are looking to develop new cancer drugs and treatments.