TOKYO -- In a world first, a pipelike "miniature intestine" has been created using human iPS (induced pluripotent stem) cells, researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo announced Dec. 10.

Until now, only spherical lumps of material a few millimeters across had been made using human iPS cells, but this time, using special techniques the researchers successfully recreated something like the actual structure of an intestine. The team is hopeful this will one day lead to alternatives for intestinal transplants.

The mini intestine, also called an "intestinal organoid," is a cluster of cells that imitate actual intestines, made by culturing iPS cells that can be differentiated into a variety of tissues.

Using human iPS cells, the team first created a spherical mini intestine by creating and fusing multiple cells to become the basis for the organ. Using a specialized container for culture, multiple organoids were floated and tied together like a string. When rotated, a hole formed in their center, resulting in a tubelike structure.

Upon transplanting the organoid into mice, it reportedly grew to the same size as a mouse's small intestine. However, they were not able to confirm whether it had the same functionality as a real small intestine. Going forward, the researchers will conduct studies to find that out.

It is estimated that there are approximately 1,000 people in Japan with their small intestines removed due to intractable diseases or who were born with shortened small intestines. The only total cure is transplantation, but there are multiple challenges such as a high rate of organ rejection by the body compared to other organs due to the small intestine's complicated immune system functioning and a shortage of donors.

Two of the team members -- junior associate professor Tomohiro Mizutani and professor Ryuichi Okamoto -- said that they want to develop regenerative medicine that will benefit patients in the future.

The results were published in the international scientific journal Cell Reports Methods on the day of the announcement.

(Japanese original by Yoshimi Nakamura, Lifestyle, Science & Environment News Department)