Assessing donor-to-donor variability in human intestinal organoid cultures

Donor-to-donor variability in primary human organoid cultures has not been well characterized. As these cultures contain multiple cell types, there is greater concern that variability could lead to increased noise. In this work we investigated donor-to-donor variability in human gut adult stem cell (ASC) organoids. We examined intestinal developmental pathways during culture differentiation in ileum- and colon-derived cultures established from multiple donors, showing that differentiation patterns were consistent among cultures. This finding indicates that donor-to-donor variability in this system remains at a manageable level. Intestinal metabolic activity was evaluated by targeted analysis of central carbon metabolites and by analyzing hormone production patterns. Both experiments demonstrated similar metabolic functions among donors. Importantly, this activity reflected intestinal biology, indicating that these ASC organoid cultures are appropriate for studying metabolic processes. This work establishes a framework for generating high confidence data using human primary cultures through thorough characterization of variability.