A team of Baylor College of Medicine researchers has developed a multifunctional human nose organoid – a laboratory replica of the cells layering the inside of the nose, where the initial events of a natural viral infection begin.

The new findings reveal fundamental differences between SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a prominent pediatric respiratory virus, allowing for a better understanding of the disease’s early stages and maybe paving the way for novel therapeutics.

The study was just published in the journal mBIO, and it used a three-dimensional nasal organoid system to replicate the complicated interactions between human cells and viruses.

To investigate the interaction between SARS-CoV-2 or RSV and the nasal epithelium, the researchers reproduced a natural infection by placing each virus individually on the air side of the culture plates and observing the changes on the nose organoid.

“In the case of respiratory viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2 and RSV, the infection begins in the nose when one breathes in the virus,” says corresponding author Dr. Pedro Piedra.

“The human nose organoids we have developed provide access to the inside of the human nose, enabling us to study the early events of the infection in the lab, something we had not had before. We have successfully developed human nose organoids from both adults and infants.”

The study was the first time the scientists described a noninvasive, reproducible, and dependable method for creating human nasal organoids that can be studied in the long term. The researchers intend to apply the unique model to the study of additional respiratory viruses and disease-causing bacteria.

Source: 10.1128/mbio.03511-21

Image Credit: Getty

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