Subsets of human tuft cells retain their proliferative capacity throughout life and can act as a damage-induced pool of regenerative stem cells, report Huang et al. in Nature.

Organoids containing all human intestinal cell types were generated by the researchers from a single mature proliferating human tuft cell. Organoids engineered to lack tuft cells did not regenerate after irradiation, unlike those containing tuft cells. Although cells bearing leucine-rich repeat-containing G-protein-coupled receptor 5 (LGR5) are the most common intestinal stem cell type, they are highly sensitive to injury. Therefore, tuft cells could provide a reserve stem cell pool after loss of LGR5⁺ cells.

Huang 等人在《自然》杂志上报道，人类簇状细胞的亚群在整个生命周期中保持其增殖能力，并且可以作为损伤诱导的再生干细胞库。

包含所有人类肠道细胞类型的类器官是由研究人员从单个成熟增殖的人类簇状细胞中产生的。与含有簇状细胞的类器官不同，被改造为缺乏簇状细胞的类器官在照射后不会再生。尽管携带富含亮氨酸重复序列的 G 蛋白偶联受体 5 （LGR5） 的细胞是最常见的肠道干细胞类型，但它们对损伤高度敏感。因此，簇状细胞可以在 LGR5 ⁺ 细胞丢失后提供储备干细胞库。