TY  - JOUR
A1  - Alzheimer, Mona
A1  - Svensson, Sarah L.
A1  - König, Fabian
A1  - Schweinlin, Matthias
A1  - Metzger, Marco
A1  - Walles, Heike
A1  - Sharma, Cynthia M.
T1  - A three-dimensional intestinal tissue model reveals factors and small regulatory RNAs important for colonization with Campylobacter jejuni
JF  - PLoS Pathogens
N2  - The Gram-negative Epsilonproteobacterium Campylobacter jejuni is currently the most prevalent bacterial foodborne pathogen. Like for many other human pathogens, infection studies with C. jejuni mainly employ artificial animal or cell culture models that can be limited in their ability to reflect the in-vivo environment within the human host. Here, we report the development and application of a human three-dimensional (3D) infection model based on tissue engineering to study host-pathogen interactions. Our intestinal 3D tissue model is built on a decellularized extracellular matrix scaffold, which is reseeded with human Caco-2 cells. Dynamic culture conditions enable the formation of a polarized mucosal epithelial barrier reminiscent of the 3D microarchitecture of the human small intestine. Infection with C. jejuni demonstrates that the 3D tissue model can reveal isolate-dependent colonization and barrier disruption phenotypes accompanied by perturbed localization of cell-cell junctions. Pathogenesis-related phenotypes of C. jejuni mutant strains in the 3D model deviated from those obtained with 2D-monolayers, but recapitulated phenotypes previously observed in animal models. Moreover, we demonstrate the involvement of a small regulatory RNA pair, CJnc180/190, during infections and observe different phenotypes of CJnc180/190 mutant strains in 2D vs. 3D infection models. Hereby, the CJnc190 sRNA exerts its pathogenic influence, at least in part, via repression of PtmG, which is involved in flagellin modification. Our results suggest that the Caco-2 cell-based 3D tissue model is a valuable and biologically relevant tool between in-vitro and in-vivo infection models to study virulence of C. jejuni and other gastrointestinal pathogens.
KW  - in vitro
KW  - stem cells
KW  - invasion
KW  - host
KW  - adhesion
KW  - epithelial cells
KW  - translocation
KW  - virulence
KW  - responses
KW  - microenvironment
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-229454
VL  - 16
IS  - 2
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Jakob, Franz
A1  - Ebert, Regina
A1  - Rudert, Maximilian
A1  - Nöth, Ulrich
A1  - Walles, Heike
A1  - Docheva, Denitsa
A1  - Schieker, Matthias
A1  - Meinel, Lorenz
A1  - Groll, Jürgen
T1  - In situ guided tissue regeneration in musculoskeletal diseases and aging
JF  - Cell and Tissue Research
N2  - In situ guided tissue regeneration, also addressed as in situ tissue engineering or endogenous regeneration, has a great potential for population-wide “minimal invasive” applications. During the last two decades, tissue engineering has been developed with remarkable in vitro and preclinical success but still the number of applications in clinical routine is extremely small. Moreover, the vision of population-wide applications of ex vivo tissue engineered constructs based on cells, growth and differentiation factors and scaffolds, must probably be deemed unrealistic for economic and regulation-related issues. Hence, the progress made in this respect will be mostly applicable to a fraction of post-traumatic or post-surgery situations such as big tissue defects due to tumor manifestation. Minimally invasive procedures would probably qualify for a broader application and ideally would only require off the shelf standardized products without cells. Such products should mimic the microenvironment of regenerating tissues and make use of the endogenous tissue regeneration capacities. Functionally, the chemotaxis of regenerative cells, their amplification as a transient amplifying pool and their concerted differentiation and remodeling should be addressed. This is especially important because the main target populations for such applications are the elderly and diseased. The quality of regenerative cells is impaired in such organisms and high levels of inhibitors also interfere with regeneration and healing. In metabolic bone diseases like osteoporosis, it is already known that antagonists for inhibitors such as activin and sclerostin enhance bone formation. Implementing such strategies into applications for in situ guided tissue regeneration should greatly enhance the efficacy of tailored procedures in the future.
KW  - in situ guided tissue regeneration
KW  - stem cells
KW  - scaffolds
KW  - regenerative medicine
KW  - mesenchymal tissues
Y1  - 2012
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-124738
VL  - 347
IS  - 3
ER  -