Lab-grown ’mini-stomachs’ could shed light on COVID symptoms in children

Mini stomachs - A microscopic image of the mini stomachs used in the research  Source: GOSH - A "lab-grown model" of the human stomach that can be used to study how infections impact the gastrointestinal system, has been developed for the first time by a UCL-led team of international scientists. The team from Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (UCL GOS ICH) and the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (Legnaro, Italy), have built on recent advances to grow 'mini-organs' in a laboratory, known as organoids. These organoids provide researchers with invaluable tools to study how organs function both when they are healthy and when impacted by disease. In this study scientists have for the first time described how to grow mini-stomach organoids, across differing stages of development - fetal, child and adult. To do this, researchers, based at Zayed Centre for Research into Rare Disease in Children, isolated stem cells from patient stomach samples, and grew them under special conditions in the lab to obtain mini-stomachs in a dish that mimic the behaviour of a human stomach. As the COVID-19 pandemic progressed, several hospitals reported gastrointestinal symptoms alongside the more usual respiratory effects like coughs and breathing difficulties, particularly in children. Following these cases, the research team, led by Dr Giovanni Giuseppe Giobbe, Professor Nicola Elvassore and Professor Paolo De Coppi from UCL GOS ICH, and Dr Francesco Bonfante from Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, determined that their mini-stomach model could be used to study how a SARS-CoV-2 infection affects the stomach.