Human intestinal organoids (HIOs) are a model system for studying human intestinal epithelium. Utilizing HIOs for high-throughput studies remains inefficient, as analyzing their cellular composition and responses to varying experimental conditions requires extensive time and labor. We describe a 96-well plate-based automated pipeline for rapidly imaging and quantifying fluorescent labeling in HIOs using a high-throughput confocal microscope and image analysis software. The pipeline was leveraged to quantify varying levels of cell proliferation among donor HIO lines in response to microbial products. Cytoplasmic fluorescence via antibody labeling was also quantified with the pipeline, enabling measurement of the prevalence of specific cell types in HIOs. This platform offers a novel approach to efficiently and rapidly image and quantify fluorescent staining and immunolabeling in HIOs and has many potential applications, including drug screening, toxicity testing, intestinal barrier integrity and transport studies, microbiome and host-pathogen interaction studies, and lineage tracking.
Copyright: © 2025 Sawyer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Since entering the world stage in December of 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has impacted every corner of the globe with over 1.48 million deaths and caused untold economic damage. Infections in humans range from asymptomatic to severe disease associated with dysregulation of the immune system leading to the development of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDs). The distinct shift in peripheral monocyte activation and infiltration of these cells into the respiratory tract in ARDs patients suggests severe COVID-19 may largely result from damage to the respiratory epithelia by improperly activated macrophages. Here, we present evidence that dysregulation of the immune response in COVID-19 begins with activation of macrophages by non-neutralizing antibodies and induction of ACE2 expression, rendering these cells susceptible to killing by SARS-CoV-2. Death of macrophages occurs independently of viral replication and leads to the release of inflammatory mediators and modulation of the susceptibility of downstream epithelial cells to SARS-CoV-2.

Bladder and bowel dysfunction (BBD) is a common yet underdiagnosed paediatric entity that describes lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) accompanied by abnormal bowel patterns manifested as constipation and/or encopresis. LUTS usually manifest as urgency, urinary frequency, incontinence, and urinary tract infections (UTI). Despite increasing recognition of BBD as a risk factor for long-term urinary tract problems including recurrent UTI, vesicoureteral reflux, and renal scarring, the mechanisms underlying BBD have been unclear, and treatment remains empirical. We investigated how constipation affects the lower urinary tract function using a juvenile murine model of functional constipation. Following four days of functional constipation, animals developed LUTS including urinary frequency and detrusor overactivity evaluated by awake cystometry. Physiological examination of detrusor function in vitro using isolated bladder strips, demonstrated a significant increase in spontaneous contractions without affecting contractile force in response to electrical field stimulation, carbachol, and KCl. A significant upregulation of serotonin receptors, Htr2a and Htr2c, was observed in the bladders from mice with constipation, paralleled with augmented spontaneous contractions after pre-incubation of the bladder strips with 0.5 µM of serotonin. These results suggest that constipation induced detrusor overactivity and increased excitatory serotonin receptor activation in the urinary bladder, which contributes to the development of BBD.