Differentiated human airway organoids to assess infectivity of emerging influenza virus

Zhou, Jie; Li, Cun; Sachs, Norman; Chiu, Man Chun; Wong, Bosco Ho-Yin; Chu, Hin; Poon, Vincent Kwok-Man; Wang, Dong; Zhao, Xiaoyu; Wen, Lei; Song, Wenjun; Yuan, Shuofeng; Wong, Kenneth Kak-Yuen; Chan, Jasper Fuk-Woo; To, Kelvin Kai-Wang; Chen, Honglin; Clevers, Hans; Yuen, Kwok-Yung

Recent advances in stem cell biology have allowed the in vitro growth of 3D organoids that recapitulate the essential attributes of their counterpart organs in vivo. These organoids can be grown from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) or tissue-resident adult stem cells (ASCs) (10) . ASC-derived organoids consist exclusively of epithelial cells and can be generated from a variety of human organs, the first being the human gut (11) . These human intestinal organoids represent the first model for in vitro propagation of Norovirus and have allowed the study of other viruses (12, 13) . We very recently described the initial conditions for expanding human ASC-derived airway organoids (AOs) for >1 y (14) . Of note, protocols also have been established for generating lung organoids from human PSCs and embryonic lung (15, 16) .