Régine Gérard

Diabetic cardiomyopathy is a complication of type 2 diabetes, with known contributions of lifestyle and genetics. We develop environmentally and genetically driven in vitro models of the condition using human-induced-pluripotent-stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes. First, we mimic diabetic clinical chemistry to induce a phenotypic surrogate of diabetic cardiomyopathy, observing structural and functional disarray. Next, we consider genetic effects by deriving cardiomyocytes from two diabetic patients with variable disease progression. The cardiomyopathic phenotype is recapitulated in the patient-specific cells basally, with a severity dependent on their original clinical status. These models are incorporated into successive levels of a screening platform, identifying drugs that preserve cardiomyocyte phenotype in vitro during diabetic stress. In this work, we present a patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) model of a complex metabolic condition, showing the power of this technique for discovery and testing of therapeutic strategies for a disease with ever-increasing clinical significance.

The intimate relationship between the epithelium and immune system is crucial for maintaining tissue homeostasis, with perturbations therein linked to autoimmune disease and cancer1–3. Whereas stem cell-derived organoids are powerful models of epithelial function4, they lack tissue-resident immune cells that are essential for capturing organ-level processes. We describe human intestinal immuno-organoids (IIOs), formed through self-organization of epithelial organoids and autologous tissue-resident memory T (TRM) cells, a portion of which integrate within the epithelium and continuously survey the barrier. TRM cell migration and interaction with epithelial cells was orchestrated by TRM cell-enriched transcriptomic programs governing cell motility and adhesion. We combined IIOs and single-cell transcriptomics to investigate intestinal inflammation triggered by cancer-targeting biologics in patients. Inflammation was associated with the emergence of an activated population of CD8+ T cells that progressively acquired intraepithelial and cytotoxic features. The appearance of this effector population was preceded and potentiated by a T helper-1-like CD4+ population, which initially produced cytokines and subsequently became cytotoxic itself. As a system amenable to direct perturbation, IIOs allowed us to identify the Rho pathway as a new target for mitigation of immunotherapy-associated intestinal inflammation. Given that they recapitulate both the phenotypic outcomes and underlying interlineage immune interactions, IIOs can be used to study tissue-resident immune responses in the context of tumorigenesis and infectious and autoimmune diseases. We combined human intestinal immuno-organoids and single-cell transcriptomics to investigate intestinal inflammation triggered by cancer-targeting biologics, which was associated with an activated population of CD8+ T cells that progressively acquired intraepithelial and cytotoxic features.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans the biological, physical, and social sciences.

The multiphasic etiology of tissue inflammation and the fundamental immunological differences between species render inflammatory pathologies difficult to recapitulate in animal models, and account for the paucity of therapies that are successfully translated from rodents to humans. Here, we present a human-relevant organ-on-a-chip platform for experimental inflammatory diseases. We created an immunocompetent in vitro gut model by incorporating intestinal epithelial and immune cells into microfluidic chambers that permit cell movement across an extracellular matrix (ECM) and fluidic channels. This is the first model that integrates a mucosal barrier, a three-dimensional ECM, resident and infiltrating immune cells, and simulates a functional crosstalk that ultimately triggers cellular processes representative of inflammation. Under homeostatic conditions, enterocytes form a tight epithelium and subepithelial macrophages are non-activated. Introduction of pro-inflammatory mediators triggers macrophage activation and inflammation-induced intestinal barrier leakiness. Neutrophils in a parallel, matrix-separated non-epithelial channel are attracted by such a pro-inflammatory microenvironment and migrate through the extracellular matrix, further exacerbating tissue inflammation and damage. With this model, we provide the foundations to recapitulate and investigate the onset of tissue inflammation in a controlled, human-relevant system.