Xenogeneic-free culture of human intestinal stem cells on functional polymer-coated substrates for scalable, clinical-grade stem cell therapy

Inevitable need for basement membrane extract (BME) with undefined constituents, such as Matrigel, for intestinal stem cell (ISC) culture in traditional system poses a significant barrier that must be overcome for the development of clinical-grade, scalable, ready-to-use ISCs. Here, we propose a functional polymer-based xenogeneic-free dish for the culture of intestinal stem cells (XF-DISC), ensuring substantially prolonged maintenance of ISCs derived from 3-dimensional human intestinal organoid (ISCs3D-hIO). XF-DISC enables remarkable expandability, exhibiting a 24-fold amplification in cell number within 30 days, with long-term maintenance of ISCs3D-hIO through consecutive passaging more than 30 times (> 210 days), and is fully compatible with a cell banking system. Notably, the ISCs3D-hIO cultured on XF-DISC are successfully transplanted into the intestinal injury and inflammation models, leading to full regeneration of damaged intestinal epithelium. XF-DISC, an extraordinary reliable and scalable xenogeneic-free ISC3D-hIO culture method exhibits significant promise in the development of regenerative ISC therapy for human intestinal diseases.