Functional and molecular characterization of equine intestinal organoids across media conditions and intestinal segments.
Abstract: Gastrointestinal (GI) disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in horses, with disruption of the intestinal epithelial barrier playing a central role in disease pathogenesis. A deeper understanding of the molecular and functional properties of the equine intestinal barrier is essential to improve diagnostics and therapeutics. While intestinal organoids have emerged as a promising tool for modeling GI physiology and disease, equine-specific data remain limited. Existing studies vary in methodology and often lack functional characterization, particularly across different intestinal regions. The objective of this study was to establish a protocol for culturing equine intestinal organoids from distinct GI segments and to evaluate their barrier-related properties in comparison to native tissue. Organoids were successfully generated from equine duodenum, jejunum, and right dorsal colon using commercially available organoid growth (OGM) and organoid differentiation (ODM) media. All organoids formed spherical or budding structures with a central lumen and displayed viability across passages. Organoids in both media exhibited functional barrier characteristics, including transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER) and mucus production. However, transcriptomic and proteomic analysis revealed that ODM-grown organoids more closely resembled their tissue of origin than OGM-grown counterparts. Similarity was greatest in pathways related to cell adhesion, tight junctions, and epithelial transport. Discrepancies between organoids and tissue were largely related to metabolic activity and nutrient absorptive functions. Importantly, organoids retained segment-specific expression patterns, including absorptive and secretory markers, and more so in colonic organoids compared to small intestinal organoids. This study provides a detailed morphologic, functional, and molecular characterization of equine intestinal organoids derived from three distinct GI segments. Our findings contribute to the body of evidence demonstrating the importance of media composition to epithelial differentiation and segment-specific physiology. It also lays the groundwork for future applications, including host–pathogen interaction studies, drug permeability assays, and investigation of mucosal repair and regeneration in a segment-specific manner. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12917-025-05222-9.
Publication Date: 2026-01-16 PubMed ID: 41545869PubMed Central: PMC12952084DOI: 10.1186/s12917-025-05222-9Google Scholar: Lookup
The Equine Research Bank provides access to a large database of publicly available scientific literature. Inclusion in the Research Bank does not imply endorsement of study methods or findings by Mad Barn.
- Journal Article
Summary
This research summary has been generated with artificial intelligence and may contain errors and omissions. Refer to the original study to confirm details provided. Submit correction.
Overview
- This study developed and characterized organoids—miniature, simplified versions of organs—from different sections of the horse intestine, to better understand how these structures mimic the natural intestinal barrier and how culture conditions affect their properties.
Introduction and Background
- Gastrointestinal (GI) diseases cause significant health issues and death in horses, largely due to damage or disruption of the intestinal epithelial barrier.
- The intestinal epithelial barrier plays a crucial role in protecting the gut and maintaining overall intestinal function.
- A detailed understanding of the equine intestinal barrier at molecular and functional levels is needed to improve diagnostic tools and treatments for GI diseases in horses.
- Intestinal organoids—three-dimensional, stem cell-derived cultures that mimic intestinal tissue—are emerging as valuable tools to study GI physiology and pathology.
- While organoids have been studied in various species, equine-specific intestinal organoids have limited research, and most existing studies lack comprehensive functional assessments and comparisons across different intestinal regions.
Study Objectives
- To establish a reliable protocol for culturing equine intestinal organoids from three distinct gastrointestinal segments: duodenum, jejunum, and right dorsal colon.
- To evaluate and compare the functional barrier properties (such as barrier integrity and mucus production) of these organoids against native equine tissue.
- To assess the molecular similarity of organoids to their tissue of origin using transcriptomic and proteomic analyses under two different culture media conditions.
Methods
- Organoids were derived from three intestinal segments—duodenum, jejunum (small intestine), and right dorsal colon (large intestine)—from horses.
- Two types of culture media were used:
- Organoid Growth Media (OGM) designed to support growth and expansion.
- Organoid Differentiation Media (ODM) designed to promote maturation and differentiation.
- Organoid formation and morphology were monitored, assessing structure such as spherical or budding shapes with central lumens.
- Functional assays included:
- Transepithelial Electrical Resistance (TEER) to assess barrier integrity.
- Mucus production to evaluate secretory function.
- Molecular characterization involved:
- Transcriptomic (gene expression) profiling to compare organoids with parent tissue.
- Proteomic (protein expression) analysis to examine how closely organoids resemble native tissue at the protein level.
Key Findings
- Organoids successfully grew from all three intestinal segments and maintained viability over multiple passages.
- Both OGM and ODM media supported the formation of organoids that exhibited key intestinal epithelial barrier functions:
- TEER measurements confirmed functional barrier properties.
- Mucus secretion was evident, indicating active epithelial secretory function.
- Organoids cultured in ODM (differentiation media) showed molecular characteristics more closely resembling native tissue than those grown in OGM:
- This was especially clear in pathways linked to cell adhesion, tight junction components, and epithelial transport mechanisms.
- Differences between organoids and native tissue were mainly related to:
- Metabolic activity
- Nutrient absorption functions
- Organoids preserved segment-specific expression patterns:
- Both absorptive and secretory markers characteristic of their tissue of origin remained detectable.
- These segment-specific features were more strongly retained in colon-derived organoids compared to those from the small intestine.
Significance and Applications
- This study provides a comprehensive description of the morphology, function, and molecular profile of equine intestinal organoids from multiple GI segments, enhancing basic understanding of equine gut models.
- It highlights the critical impact of culture media composition on the differentiation status and physiological fidelity of organoids.
- Such organoids can serve as valuable tools for future research:
- Modeling host–pathogen interactions specific to different intestinal regions.
- Conducting drug permeability and toxicology assays tailored to equine GI physiology.
- Investigating mechanisms of mucosal repair and regeneration post-injury on a segment-specific basis.
- The availability of detailed molecular and functional characterization sets a foundation for improving veterinary diagnostics and therapeutics targeting equine GI diseases.
- Supplementary materials for this study are accessible online for further technical details and data.
Cite This Article
APA
Richardson LM, Gordon J, Davila C, Chamoun-Emanuelli AM, Zdyrski C, Whitfield-Cargile CM.
(2026).
Functional and molecular characterization of equine intestinal organoids across media conditions and intestinal segments.
BMC Vet Res, 22(1), 142.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-025-05222-9 Publication
Researcher Affiliations
- Department of Large Animal Medicine, University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine, Athens, GA, USA. lauren.richardson@uga.edu.
- Department of Large Animal Medicine, University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine, Athens, GA, USA.
- Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
- Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
- SMART Pharmacology, Precision One Health Initiative, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
- Department of Large Animal Medicine, University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine, Athens, GA, USA.
- Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
Conflict of Interest Statement
Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study was approved by the Texas A&M University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC 2021 − 0164). Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: CZ is the Director of Research and Product Development at 3D Health Solutions. No other authors have competing interests.
References
This article includes 61 references
- Traub-Dargatz JL, Kopral CA, Seitzinger AH, Garber LP, Forde K, White NA. Estimate of the National incidence of and operation-level risk factors for colic among horses in the united States, spring 1998 to spring 1999. J Am Vet Med Assoc 2001;219(1):67–71.
- Archer DC, Proudman CJ. Epidemiological clues to preventing colic. Vet J 2006;172(1):29–39.
- Lalu MM, Montroy J, Begley CG, Bubela T, Hunniford V, Ripsman D. Identifying and Understanding factors that affect the translation of therapies from the laboratory to patients: a study protocol. F1000Res 2020;9:485.
- Chopra DP, Dombkowski AA, Stemmer PM, Parker GC. Intestinal epithelial cells in vitro. Stem Cells Dev 2010;19(1):131–42.
- Taelman J, Diaz M, Guiu J. Human intestinal organoids: promise and challenge. Front Cell Dev Biol 2022;10:854740.
- Powell RH, Behnke MS. WRN conditioned media is sufficient for in vitro propagation of intestinal organoids from large farm and small companion animals. Biol Open 2017;6(5):698–705.
- Stewart AS, Freund JM, Gonzalez LM. Advanced three-dimensional culture of equine intestinal epithelial stem cells. Equine Vet J 2018;50(2):241–8.
- Hellman S. Generation of equine enteroids and enteroid-derived 2D monolayers that are responsive to microbial mimics. Vet Res 2021;52(1):108.
- Windhaber C, Heckl A, Csukovich G, Pratscher B, Burgener IA, Biermann N. A matter of differentiation: equine enteroids as a model for the in vivo intestinal epithelium. Vet Res 2024;55(1):30.
- Erwin SJ, Blikslager AT, Ziegler AL. Age-Dependent intestinal repair: implications for foals with severe colic. Anim (Basel) 2021;11(12):3337.
- Kramer N, Pratscher B, Meneses AMC, Tschulenk W, Walter I, Swoboda A. Generation of differentiating and Long-Living intestinal organoids reflecting the cellular diversity of canine intestine. Cells 2020;9(4):822.
- Oshima T, Miwa H. Gastrointestinal mucosal barrier function and diseases. J Gastroenterol 2016;51(8):768–78.
- Gomez-Bris R, Rodríguez-Rodríguez P, Ortega-Zapero M, Ruvira S, Castillo-González R, Fernández-Aceñero M-J. Segmental regulation of intestinal motility by colitis and the adaptive immune system in the mouse ileum and colon. Am J Pathol 2025;195(2):204–20.
- Zhao H, Zhang Z, Liu H, Ma M, Sun P, Zhao Y. Multi-omics perspective: mechanisms of Gastrointestinal injury repair. Burns Trauma 2025;13:tkae057.
- Zachos NC, Kovbasnjuk O, Foulke-Abel J, In J, Blutt SE, de Jonge HR. Human Enteroids/Colonoids and intestinal organoids functionally recapitulate normal intestinal physiology and pathophysiology. J Biol Chem 2016;291(8):3759–66.
- Nagaraj N, Lu A, Mann M, Wiśniewski JR. Detergent-based but gel-free method allows identification of several hundred membrane proteins in single LC-MS runs.. J Proteome Res 2008;7(11):5028–32.
- Wade CM, Giulotto E, Sigurdsson S, Zoli M, Gnerre S, Imsland F. Genome sequence, comparative analysis, and population genetics of the domestic horse.. Science 2009;326(5954):865–7.
- Dobin A, Davis CA, Schlesinger F, Drenkow J, Zaleski C, Jha S. STAR: ultrafast universal RNA-seq aligner.. Bioinformatics 2013;29(1):15–21.
- Love MI, Huber W, Anders S. Moderated Estimation of fold change and dispersion for RNA-seq data with DESeq2.. Genome Biol 2014;15(12):550.
- Wang M, Yu H, Zhang T, Cao L, Du Y, Xie Y. In-Depth comparison of matrigel dissolving methods on proteomic profiling of organoids.. Mol Cell Proteom 2022;21(1):100181.
- Law CW, Chen Y, Shi W, Smyth GK. Voom: precision weights unlock linear model analysis tools for RNA-seq read counts.. Genome Biol 2014;15(2):R29.
- Konopka T. Uniform manifold approximation and Projection.. 0.2.11.0 ed. R package; 2025.
- Kim YS, Ho SB. Intestinal goblet cells and mucins in health and disease: recent insights and progress.. Curr Gastroenterol Rep 2010;12(5):319–30.
- Suzuki T. Regulation of intestinal epithelial permeability by tight junctions.. Cell Mol Life Sci 2013;70(4):631–59.
- Wilson SS, Mayo M, Melim T, Knight H, Patnaude L, Wu X. Optimized culture conditions for improved growth and functional differentiation of mouse and human colon organoids.. Front Immunol 2020;11:547102.
- Schuijers J, Junker JP, Mokry M, Hatzis P, Koo BK, Sasselli V. Ascl2 acts as an R-spondin/Wnt-responsive switch to control stemness in intestinal crypts.. Cell Stem Cell 2015;16(2):158–70.
- Gracz AD, Fuller MK, Wang F, Li L, Stelzner M, Dunn JC. Brief report: CD24 and CD44 mark human intestinal epithelial cell populations with characteristics of active and facultative stem cells.. Stem Cells 2013;31(9):2024–30.
- Merenda A, Fenderico N, Maurice MM. Wnt signaling in 3D: recent advances in the applications of intestinal organoids.. Trends Cell Biol 2020;30(1):60–73.
- Onozato D, Ogawa I, Kida Y, Mizuno S, Hashita T, Iwao T. Generation of Budding-Like intestinal organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells.. J Pharm Sci 2021;110(7):2637–50.
- Kwon O, Han TS, Son MY. Intestinal morphogenesis in Development, Regeneration, and disease: the potential utility of intestinal organoids for studying compartmentalization of the Crypt-Villus structure.. Front Cell Dev Biol 2020;8:593969.
- Stewart AS, Pratt-Phillips S, Gonzalez LM. Alterations in intestinal permeability: the role of the leaky gut in health and disease.. J Equine Vet Sci 2017;52:10–22.
- Paone P, Cani PD. Mucus barrier, mucins and gut microbiota: the expected slimy partners?. Gut 2020;69(12):2232–43.
- Zhao Q, Maynard CL. Mucus, commensals, and the immune system.. Gut Microbes 2022;14(1):2041342.
- Suriano F, Nystrom EEL, Sergi D, Gustafsson JK. Diet, microbiota, and the mucus layer: the guardians of our health.. Front Immunol 2022;13:953196.
- Sheahan DG, Jervis HR. Comparative histochemistry of Gastrointestinal mucosubstances.. Am J Anat 1976;146(2):103–31.
- Liu Q, Niu X, Li Y, Zhang JR, Zhu SJ, Yang QY. Role of the mucin-like glycoprotein FCGBP in mucosal immunity and cancer.. Front Immunol 2022;13:863317.
- Yang Y, Lin Z, Lin Q, Bei W, Guo J. Pathological and therapeutic roles of bioactive peptide trefoil factor 3 in diverse diseases: recent progress and perspective.. Cell Death Dis 2022;13(1):62.
- Gerber V, Robinson NE, Venta RJ, Rawson J, Jefcoat AM, Hotchkiss JA. Mucin genes in horse airways: MUC5AC, but not MUC2, May play a role in recurrent airway obstruction.. Equine Vet J 2003;35(3):252–7.
- Rousseau K, Cardwell JM, Humphrey E, Newton R, Knight D, Clegg P. Muc5b is the major polymeric mucin in mucus from thoroughbred horses with and without airway mucus accumulation.. PLoS ONE 2011;6(5):e19678.
- Grasberger H, Gao J, Nagao-Kitamoto H, Kitamoto S, Zhang M, Kamada N. Increased expression of DUOX2 is an epithelial response to mucosal dysbiosis required for immune homeostasis in mouse intestine.. Gastroenterology 2015;149(7):1849–59.
- Srinivasan B, Kolli AR, Esch MB, Abaci HE, Shuler ML, Hickman JJ. TEER measurement techniques for in vitro barrier model systems.. J Lab Autom 2015;20(2):107–26.
- Stewart AS, Kopper JJ, McKinney-Aguirre C, Veerasamy B, Sahoo DK, Freund JM. Assessment of equine intestinal epithelial junctional complexes and barrier permeability using a monolayer culture system.. Front Vet Sci 2024;11:1455262.
- Sutton KM, Orr B, Hope J, Jensen SR, Vervelde L. Establishment of bovine 3D enteroid-derived 2D monolayers.. Vet Res 2022;53(1):15.
- Schoultz I, Keita AV. The intestinal barrier and current techniques for the assessment of gut permeability.. Cells 2020;9(8):1909.
- Merritt AM, Julliand V. Gastrointestinal physiology.. Equine Applied and Clinical Nutrition 2013. pp. 3–32.
- Blikslager AT, White NA, Moore II, Mair JN. TS. The equine acute abdomen.. Newark, UNITED STATES: Wiley, Incorporated;; 2017.
- Barreto EBL, Rattes IC, da Costa AV, Gama P. Paneth cells and their multiple functions.. Cell Biol Int 2022;46(5):701–10.
- Ferraris RP. Dietary and developmental regulation of intestinal sugar transport.. Biochem J 2001;360(Pt 2):265–76.
- Koepsell H. Glucose transporters in the small intestine in health and disease.. Pflugers Arch 2020;472(9):1207–48.
- Thomson AB, Wild G. Adaptation of intestinal nutrient transport in health and disease. Part II.. Dig Dis Sci 1997;42(3):470–88.
- Thomson AB, Wild G. Adaptation of intestinal nutrient transport in health and disease. Part I.. Dig Dis Sci 1997;42(3):453–69.
- Zeissig S, Fromm A, Mankertz J, Weiske J, Zeitz M, Fromm M. Butyrate induces intestinal sodium absorption via Sp3-mediated transcriptional up-regulation of epithelial sodium channels.. Gastroenterology 2007;132(1):236–48.
- Johansson ME, Hansson GC. Immunological aspects of intestinal mucus and mucins.. Nat Rev Immunol 2016;16(10):639–49.
- Criss ZK 2nd, Bhasin N, Di Rienzi SC, Rajan A, Deans-Fielder K, Swaminathan G. Drivers of transcriptional variance in human intestinal epithelial organoids.. Physiol Genomics 2021;53(11):486–508.
- Bornholdt J, Muller CV, Nielsen MJ, Strickertsson J, Rago D, Chen Y. Detecting host responses to microbial stimulation using primary epithelial organoids.. Gut Microbes 2023;15(2):2281012.
- Derricott H, Luu L, Fong WY, Hartley CS, Johnston LJ, Armstrong SD. Developing a 3D intestinal epithelium model for livestock species.. Cell Tissue Res 2019;375(2):409–24.
- Fujimichi Y, Otsuka K, Tomita M, Iwasaki T. An efficient intestinal organoid system of direct sorting to evaluate stem cell competition in vitro.. Sci Rep 2019;9(1):20297.
- Han SH, Shim S, Kim MJ, Shin HY, Jang WS, Lee SJ. Long-term culture-induced phenotypic difference and efficient cryopreservation of small intestinal organoids by treatment timing of Rho kinase inhibitor.. World J Gastroenterol 2017;23(6):964–75.
- Ye S, Tan L, Yang R, Fang B, Qu S, Schulze EN. Pleiotropy of glycogen synthase kinase-3 Inhibition by CHIR99021 promotes self-renewal of embryonic stem cells from refractory mouse strains.. PLoS ONE 2012;7(4):e35892.
- Zhao D, Farnell MB, Kogut MH, Genovese KJ, Chapkin RS, Davidson LA. From crypts to enteroids: establishment and characterization of avian intestinal organoids.. Poult Sci 2022;101(3):101642.
- Srinivasan T, Than EB, Bu P, Tung KL, Chen KY, Augenlicht L. Notch signalling regulates asymmetric division and inter-conversion between lgr5 and bmi1 expressing intestinal stem cells.. Sci Rep 2016;6:26069.
Citations
This article has been cited 0 times.Use Nutrition Calculator
Check if your horse's diet meets their nutrition requirements with our easy-to-use tool Check your horse's diet with our easy-to-use tool
Talk to a Nutritionist
Discuss your horse's feeding plan with our experts over a free phone consultation Discuss your horse's diet over a phone consultation
Submit Diet Evaluation
Get a customized feeding plan for your horse formulated by our equine nutritionists Get a custom feeding plan formulated by our nutritionists