Alcohol feeding promotes colonic permeability and changes in colonic organoid stem cell fate

Alcohol increases intestinal permeability to pro-inflammatory microbial products including endotoxin and this is a key step in alcohol-induced organ damage such as alcoholic liver disease. Elevated intestinal permeability is observed even after a period of sobriety. We sought to investigate mechanisms contributing to long-term effects of alcohol on intestinal permeability by testing the hypothesis that alcohol affects intestinal stem cells using ex vivo organoids generated from jejunum and colon from chronic alcohol fed mice.