PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Nino Iakobachvili
AU  - Stephen Adonai Leon Icaza
AU  - Kèvin Knoops
AU  - Norman Sachs
AU  - Serge Mazères
AU  - Roxane Simeone
AU  - Antonio Peixoto
AU  - Marlène Murris-Espin
AU  - Julien Mazières
AU  - Carmen López-Iglesias
AU  - Raimond B.G. Ravelli
AU  - Olivier Neyrolles
AU  - Etienne Meunier
AU  - Geanncarlo Lugo-Villarino
AU  - Hans Clevers
AU  - Céline Cougoule
AU  - Peter J. Peters
TI  - Mycobacteria-host interactions in human bronchiolar airway organoids
AID  - 10.1101/2020.11.12.379586
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.11.12.379586
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/11/12/2020.11.12.379586.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/11/12/2020.11.12.379586.full
AB  - Tuberculosis, one of the oldest human pathogens remains a major global health threat. Recent advances in organoid technology offer a unique opportunity to grow different human “organs” in vitro, including the human airway, that faithfully recapitulate tissue architecture and function. We have explored the potential of human airway organoids (AOs) as a novel system in which to model tuberculosis infection. To this end, we adapted biosafety containment level 3–approved procedures to allow successful microinjection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, into AOs. We reveal that mycobacteria infected epithelial cells with low efficiency, and that the organoid microenvironment was able to control, but not eliminate the pathogen. We demonstrate that AOs responded to infection by inducing cytokine and antimicrobial peptide production, and inhibiting mucins. Given the importance of myeloid cells in tuberculosis infection, we co-cultured mycobacteria-infected organoids with human monocyte-derived macrophages, and found that these cells were recruited to the organoid epithelium. We conclude that adult stem cell–derived airway organoids can be used to model early events of tuberculosis infection and offer new avenues for fundamental and therapeutic research.Competing Interest StatementH.C and N.S are inventors on patents related to organoid technology.