Fig. 1.

Disease modeling of GEP-NENs using organoids. (A) Organoids are constructed in culture medium, and patient-specific organoids can be derived from a patient's primary tissue (shown in the inset; scale bar: 100 µm). This schematic shows biopsies being taken from a human intestine, the upper biopsy contains neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC) and the lower biopsy contains normal intestinal tissue. Organoids are derived from both biopsies to generate NEC organoids and normal intestinal organoids. (B) The NEC organoids can be transplanted into rodent models to create xenograft models. The histology of a xenograft model, reconstituting the patient's histology as determined by H&E staining, is shown. Scale bar: 100 µm. (C) Organoids can also be used for drug screening, and (D) disease modeling. In disease modeling, artificial NEC organoids can be constructed by using genome editing to introduce specific genetic mutations into normal colon organoids.