Intestinal Organoids: New Frontiers in the Study of Intestinal Disease and Physiology

The development of sustainable intestinal organoid cell culture has emerged as a new modality for the study of intestinal function and cellular processes. Organoid culture is providing a new test-bed for therapeutic research and development. Intestinal organoids, self-renewing three-dimensional structures comprised of intestinal stem cells and their differentiated epithelial progeny allow for more facile and robust exploration of cellular activity, cell organization and structure, genetic manipulation, and vastly more physiologic modeling of intestinal response to stimuli as compared to traditional two dimensional cell line cultures. Intestinal organoids are impacting a wide variety of research into gastrointestinal pathology. The purpose of this review is to discuss the current state-of-the-art and future impact of research using enteroids and colonoids (organoids grown from the small and large intestines respectively).