Organoids, organs-on-chips and other systems, and microbiota

Abstract

The human gut microbiome is considered an organ in its entirety and has been the subject of extensive research due to its role in physiology, metabolism, digestion, and immune regulation. Disequilibria of the normal microbiome have been associated with the development of several gastrointestinal diseases, but the exact underlying interactions are not well understood. Conventional in vivo and in vitro modelling systems fail to faithfully recapitulate the complexity of the human host-gut microbiome, emphasising the requirement for novel systems that provide a platform to study human host-gut microbiome interactions with a more holistic representation of the human in vivo microenvironment. In this review, we outline the progression and applications of new and old modelling systems with particular focus on their ability to model and to study host-microbiome cross-talk.

Keywords: biological models; biotechnology; host–microbe interactions.

Figure 1.. Current cell modelling systems and their potential to model host-microbiome cross-talk.

Schematic representation of current cell culturing techniques available and their ability to model host–microbiome interactions.

Figure 2.. A proposed microfluidic chip to model host–microbiome cross-talk.

An amalgamation of SynVivo, organ-on-a-chip, and HuMiX culturing systems has the potential to model the host–microbiome interactions within the entire human body, in the presence of flow and shear stresses (representative of a circulatory system).