3D Organoid Culture Crucial for Chromosome Segregation

AMSBIO reports on a recent published paper** by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) investigating why epithelial cells grown in monolayers on a plastic dish are worse at segregating their chromosomes than epithelial cells in vivo or in 3D organoid cultures.

This discovery by the MIT researchers could have big implications for scientists growing human tissues in the lab and may also help explain why chromosome mistakes run rampant in cancerous cells – an unanswered question in cancer biology. More broadly, the new findings demonstrate that cells should be studied in the right context by moving on from culturing cells in two dimensions on a plastic dish, to grow them in 3D, mimicking normal development in organoid culture systems.

The MIT researchers used RNA Stat-60 from AMSBIO to extract total RNA for sequencing from immature and mature organoids. Their analysis of gene expression demonstrated that tissue architecture influences chromosome segregation in a post-transcriptional manner.

William Hadlington-Booth - a business unit manager at AMSBIO said "As a leading supplier in organoid culture, it’s exciting to see our trusted reagent RNA Stat-60 being used for studying gene expression in such an innovative research project at MIT. It adds to our comprehensive range of products assisting organoid customers including matrices, growth factors and cryropreservation reagents"