PNAS finds that it takes cell team cooperation to heal the intestine

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have found a more detailed picture showing how intestinal epithelial cells (the inner lining of the intestine) repair themselves after infection with rotavirus

Researchers also accidentally discovered that intestinal epithelial cells are a typical cell type for rotavirus infection.

Diseases of the digestive tract affect approximately 60 million Americans each year

The goal of the researchers in this project is to help better understand the repair process of rotavirus in the mouse model after intestinal epithelial damage

Intestinal healing requires teamwork

The inner surface of the intestine is lined with a layer of epithelial cells.

Blutt said: "We know that the damage to the top of the villi will be quickly transmitted to the stem cells in the crypt, stimulating them to divide and develop into special cells needed to repair the damage to the top of the villi

To further observe how epithelial cells heal, the research team applied a fairly new technique, single-cell transcriptomics, to determine which genes are expressed at the single-cell level of all cells between the apex and the crypt

"Our analysis revealed a complex cell landscape characterized by cell populations with specific transcriptome characteristics, which depend not only on the cell type, but also on the location of the cells along the villi," said first author Carolyn Bomidi.

The researchers' findings also support a new picture of how regeneration occurs

Unexpected host of rotavirus

Blutt, Bomidi, and their colleagues were surprised to find that rotavirus genetic material was found in clustered cells, a cell type that has not previously been reported to support rotavirus infection

Bomidi said: "Considering that there are very few clustered cells in the intestinal epithelial cells, it is exciting that we can detect this virus

Taken together, these findings provide evidence that rotavirus infection stimulates a stem cell-driven repair program, and clustered cells participate in it, leading to the production of immature intestinal cells and repairing damaged epithelial cells

"What I am most excited about is that this is the first report on the properties of single-cell transcripts after human enterovirus infection," Blutt said

"I expect that this method will also provide new tools to investigate unanswered questions about how rotavirus and other infectious or inflammatory conditions cause disease," said co-corresponding author Dr.

DOI

10.

Article title