2022/08/12
Keio University School of Medicine
A research group from the Keio University School of Medicine, led by Professor Toshiro Sato of The Sakaguchi Laboratory (Organoid Medicine), along with Project Assistant Professor Keiko Ishiwata, Assistant Professor Shinya Sugimoto, and Professor Takanori Kanai from the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, has discovered that many of the stem cells that govern proliferation in the human colon are in a quiescent state compared to those in mice, and for the first time has elucidated their importance in regeneration from inflammation. Until now, research on intestinal stem cells has been conducted mainly using mice, but it was unclear how stem cells behave in the human colon due to the lack of an experimental model. In this study, the research team transplanted gene-edited human colon cells into the colons of mice. They revealed that colon stem cells proliferate slowly following a quiescent period, survive during inflammation, and proliferate during the regeneration process. They also showed that TGF-β signaling is involved in the slow proliferation rate of the human colon. This is the first study to clarify how human colon stem cells function during both homeostasis and regeneration from inflammation. It is expected to provide a new foothold for developing curative treatments for inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer.
These research findings were published online in the American scientific journal Gastroenterology on August 10, 2022 (U.S. Eastern Time).
The full press release can be found below.