Human bile cholangiocyte organoids originate from the extrahepatic bile duct and can repair bile duct scaffolds in vitro

Cholangiocyte organoids provide a powerful tool for characterizing bile duct epithelium and expanding cholangiocytes for tissue engineering purposes. However, this involves invasively obtained tissue-biopsies via surgery which is not preferential and limits the patient-specific capacities of these cultures. To overcome this, organoid culture were initiated from minimal invasive bile-samples obtained during routine clinical procedures. Characterization revealed that these bile-cholangiocyte organoids originate from the extrahepatic bile duct and are capable to repopulate human extrahepatic bile duct scaffolds. With this, bile duct tissue engineering as well as personalized disease modelling is in sight. mRNA profiles of BCO, ERCP, ECO and ICO samples with three biological replicates mRNA profiles of ERCP samples cultured in BME and human ductal scaffolds with three biological replicates.