The Enteroid Core will provide enteroids/colonoids from our established JHU biobank to investigators of this P01 as frozen stocks, instruction given on how to culture and propagate the enteroids, how to use conditioned media and how to make enteroid/colonoid monolayers. Conditioned media will be prepared and provided to the investigators weekly. In collaboration with the Immunology Core, the Enteroid Core will prepare static immune cell/enteroid co-culture models to characterize the innate immune response after exposure to bacterial pathogens (i.e. EHEC, EAEC, ETEC and Shigella). The co-culture model will be developed to feature various types of immune cells including macrophages, granulocytes, and dendritic cells.
A novel system to model the human small intestine and colon will be used to study the pathogenic mechanisms by which several important bacterial pathogens cause disease, stimulate an immune response, and test several new potential products to present and treat disease due to these organisms. The Enteroid Core will provide the cultures of human intestinal cells to all investigators in this research consortium.