Altered Mucus Barrier Integrity and Increased Susceptibility to Colitis in Mice upon Loss of Telocyte Bone Morphogenetic Protein Signalling.

FoxL1-Telocytes (TC) are subepithelial cells that form a network underneath the epithelium. We have shown that without inflammatory stress, mice with loss of function in the BMP signalling pathway in TC () initiated colonic neoplasia. Although TC are modulated in IBD patients, their specific role in this pathogenesis remains unclear.

Organoids and Their Use in Modeling Gut Epithelial Cell Lineage Differentiation and Barrier Properties During Intestinal Diseases.

Maintenance of intestinal epithelium homeostasis is a complex process because of the multicellular and molecular composition of the gastrointestinal wall and the involvement of surrounding interactive signals. The complex nature of this intestinal barrier system poses challenges in the detailed mechanistic understanding of intestinal morphogenesis and the onset of several gut pathologies, including intestinal inflammatory disorders, food allergies, and cancer. For several years, the gut scientific community has explored different alternatives in research involving animals and models consisting of cultured monolayers derived from the immortalized or cancerous origin cell lines.