Cited by 2,408Cancer Cells and MetastasisColorectal Cancer Treatments and StudiesWnt/β-catenin signaling in development and cancer

Prospective Derivation of a Living Organoid Biobank of Colorectal Cancer Patients

Open access
van de Wetering, Marc, Francies, Hayley E., Francis, Joshua M., Bounova, Gergana, Iorio, Francesco, Pronk, Apollo, van Houdt, Winan, van Gorp, Joost +29 more·2015·Cell

Abstract

In Rspondin-based 3D cultures, Lgr5 stem cells from multiple organs form ever-expanding epithelial organoids that retain their tissue identity. We report the establishment of tumor organoid cultures from 20 consecutive colorectal carcinoma (CRC) patients. For most, organoids were also generated from adjacent normal tissue. Organoids closely recapitulate several properties of the original tumor. The spectrum of genetic changes within the "living biobank" agrees well with previous large-scale mutational analyses of CRC. Gene expression analysis indicates that the major CRC molecular subtypes are represented. Tumor organoids are amenable to high-throughput drug screens allowing detection of gene-drug associations. As an example, a single organoid culture was exquisitely sensitive to Wnt secretion (porcupine) inhibitors and carried a mutation in the negative Wnt feedback regulator RNF43, rather than in APC. Organoid technology may fill the gap between cancer genetics and patient trials, complement cell-line- and xenograft-based drug studies, and allow personalized therapy design. PAPERCLIP.

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Crossref · 10.1016/j.cell.2015.03.053

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  • Living biobanks can provide access to patient-derived cells and organoids from large patient cohorts, and have already been established for different cancers, genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, infectious diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and inflammatory bowel diseases.

    “‘living biobanks’ can provide access to patient-derived cells and organoids from large patient cohorts, and have already been established for different cancers124,151,176–178, genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, infectious diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and inflammatory bowel diseases179”

    From Human disease models in drug development (2023) · cites this paper as [151]

    Split into 2 atoms — 1 confirmed, 1 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.

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  • Organoids have been deployed to identify therapeutic leads in a number of tumors, including rare cancers that are understudied and poorly characterized at the molecular level.

    “Organoids are ideally suited for FPM due to their ease of establishment, similarity with the tissue of origin and tractability158,167 and have been deployed to identify therapeutic leads in a number of tumors168, including rare cancers that tend to be understudied and poorly characterized at the molecular level16,151,169,170.”

    From Organoids (2022) · cites this paper as [169]

    The Results section (“Organoid proof-of-concept drug screen”; page unavailable) reports screening colorectal-cancer organoids and identifying drug sensitivities, supporting the use of organoids to find potential therapeutic leads. This paper studies colorectal cancer, not a number of tumor types. The sentence attaches separate citations to its claim about rare cancers, so that clause is not attributed to this source. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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  • Recent studies using in vitro organoids grown from different intestinal tumors showed a strong correlation, functionally and molecularly, with their primary tissue counterparts.

    “Recent studies using in vitro organoids grown from different intestinal tumors [33, 34] showed a strong correlation, functionally and molecularly with their primary tissue counterparts, providing a strong argument in favor of the potential for in vitro systems to model intestinal disease.”

    From Modeling APC mutagenesis and familial adenomatous polyposis using human iPS cells (2018) · cites this paper as [34]

    The Results sections on the CRC biobank and genomic characterization report preserved tumor morphology and high concordance of somatic variants between organoids and matched biopsies. The drug-screen Results measure responses in organoids, but do not establish that their functional responses strongly correlate with those of the primary tumors. Thus, the molecular resemblance is supported; the functional comparison is not. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • The wild-type human colon organoid line P26n was previously described in Van De Wetering et al. (2015).

    “In short, the wild-type human colon organoid line P26n, as previously described in Van De Wetering et al. (2015) was cultured in domes of Cultrex Pathclear Reduced Growth Factor Basement Membrane Extract (BME) (3533-001; Amsbio).”

    From One-step generation of tumor models by base editor multiplexing in adult stem cell-derived organoids (2023) · cites this paper as Van De Wetering et al. (2015)

    The Results section on RNA analysis describes normal human colon-derived organoids, and Experimental procedures describes how healthy-tissue organoids were cultured (pages unavailable). However, searches for “P26n” and “P26” found no identification of that specific line in our copy, so its prior description is not established. (LLM, conf=0.78)

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  • Broad clinical implementation of patient-specific disease models such as PDOs is hindered by low efficiencies in PDO establishment (60-70% success rate on average, up to 90% for intestinal organoids) and lengthy generation times and expansion procedures.

    “broad clinical implementation of patient-specific disease models, such as PDOs, is currently hindered by low efficiencies in PDO establishment (60–70% success rate on average although, for some tissues, up to 90% have been reported for intestinal organoids151) as well as lengthy generation times and expansion procedures”

    From Human disease models in drug development (2023) · cites this paper as [151]

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Authors
van de Wetering, M., Francies, H. E., Francis, J. M., Bounova, G., Iorio, F., Pronk, A., van Houdt, W., van Gorp, J., Taylor-Weiner, A., Kester, L., McLaren-Douglas, A., Blokker, J., Jaksani, S., Bartfeld, S., Volckman, R., van Sluis, P., Li, V. S. W., Seepo, S., Sekhar Pedamallu, C., Cibulskis, K., Carter, S. L., McKenna, A., Lawrence, M. S., Lichtenstein, L., Stewart, C., Koster, J., Versteeg, R., van Oudenaarden, A., Saez-Rodriguez, J., Vries, R. G. J., Getz, G., Wessels, L., Stratton, M. R., McDermott, U., Meyerson, M., Garnett, M. J., & Clevers, H.
Affiliations
  • Wellcome Sanger Institute (GB)
  • Broad Institute (US)
  • The Netherlands Cancer Institute (NL)
  • European Bioinformatics Institute (GB)
  • Diakonessenhuis hospital (NL)
  • Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (NL)
  • National Institute for Medical Research (GB)
  • Amsterdam UMC Location University of Amsterdam (NL)
Corresponding author
  • Garnett, Mathew J.
  • Clevers, Hans
Venue
Cell
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2015-05
Volume
161
Issue
4
Pages
933-945
ISSN
0092-8674 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W1741548448
Cited by
2,408
References
64
Citations by year
2026: 196 · 2025: 233 · 2024: 232 · 2023: 220 · 2022: 267 · 2021: 343 · 2020: 260 · 2019: 181 · 2018: 173 · 2017: 154 · 2016: 108 · 2015: 39
FWCI
69.01
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cell (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • KNAW research portal (Royal Academy of Art and Sciences (KNAW)) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • RWTH Publications (RWTH Aachen) (submittedVersion)
  • Pure Amsterdam UMC (submittedVersion)
  • Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Francis Crick Institute (10105)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer Cells and Metastasis
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Colorectal Cancer Treatments and Studies
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Wnt/β-catenin signaling in development and cancer
Keywords
colorectal cancer, tumor organoids, organoid biobank, Lgr5+ stem cells, R-spondin, Wnt signaling, porcupine inhibitor, RNF43 mutation, APC mutation, drug screening, personalized treatment, molecular subtypes, gene expression profiling
MeSH terms
DNA-Binding Proteins, Drug Screening Assays, Antitumor, Humans, Organ Culture Techniques, Organoids, Colorectal Neoplasms, Oncogene Proteins, Biological Specimen Banks, Ubiquitin-Protein Ligases, Precision Medicine

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