Epithelial maturation of human intestinal organoids from pluripotency entirely in vitro

In vitro human pluripotent stem cell derived intestinal organoids (HIOs) are immature and lack for diverse differentiated secretory cell types. We would like to test the hypothesis whether addition of a mesenchyme secreting ligand which is depleted in canonical organoid culture media could increase the maturity and secretory cell type diversity in HIOs in vitro. To do this, we adapted the directed differentiation protocol of HIOs by growing HIOs in media with EGF, NOGGIN, R-spondin-1 (ENR) for 30 days, isolated epithelial cells with dispase, recovered them with adult intestinal enteroid media with Wnt-3A (WENR). Then we introduced the mesenchyme secreting ligand NRG1 to the established enteroid culture (WENR+NRG1) and compared them to the enteroids grown in control condition (WENR).