Organoid Models for Infectious Disease

Abstract

Infectious diseases affect individual health and have widespread societal impacts. New ex vivo models are critical to understand pathogenesis, host response, and features necessary to develop preventive and therapeutic treatments. Pluripotent and tissue stem cell–derived organoids provide new tools for the study of human infections. Organoid models recapitulate many characteristics of in vivo disease and are providing new insights into human respiratory, gastrointestinal, and neuronal host–microbe interactions. Increasing culture complexity by adding the stroma, interorgan communication, and the microbiome will improve the use of organoids as models for infection. Organoid cultures provide a platform with the capability to improve human health related to infectious diseases.