Using New Technology to Study Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Dogs

SUMMARY: Researchers will use organoids, miniature three-dimensional cell structures, to study genes found in dogs with inflammatory bowel disease and compare them to dogs without inflammatory bowel disease. They hope this will help to guide development of new treatments for this common and often devastating disease.

THE PROBLEM: The pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in dogs remains unknown, and as such treatment is largely limited to immunosuppressive therapy that is not always effective and results in significant side effects. These side effects can have a major impact on an affected dog’s quality of life and put strain on the human-animal bond.

THE PROJECT: IBD is a difficult disease to study for various reasons. Firstly, intestinal tissue from affected patients is not commonly available. Secondly, lab cellular studies lack applicability to real animals. Because of these limitations, the use of intestinal organoids to study IBD has been gaining interest. These tiny collections of cells mimic the structure and function of gut tissue. Organoids can be grown in the lab from stem cells harvested from affected patients. Recent studies have shown that intestinal organoids grown from stem cells collected from humans with IBD fail to express some genes involved in the maintenance of the normal intestinal wall. This is notable, because the intestinal wall protects the body against the bacteria found in the gut. It is thought that compromise to the normal intestinal wall causes nflammation in humans with IBD. We propose that the same is true in dogs. Our study will test this by examining intestinal organoids derived from dogs with IBD. We will then compare our findings to organoids derived from healthy dogs. We aim to identify alterations to the intestinal wall of dogs with IBD as a step toward understanding better ways to treat this disease that have fewer side effects and better outcomes than drugs currently in use. 

POTENTIAL IMPACT: By doing this study, we hope to uncover a future target for therapy. For example, drugs targeting the intestinal wall are being explored for IBD treatment in people. One drug tightens the intestinal wall. Another prevents bacteria from sticking to the intestinal wall. We hope that these might be useful in dogs one day.