Intestinal Organoid as a Research Platform for the Virus-host Interaction

Viral pathogens utilize various human organs for infection, and the gut is one of the primary entry sites for the viral pathogen. The gut epithelium is tightly maintained since multiple harmful substances, including viral pathogens, attack it. The outbreak of new viruses or strains often poses a massive threat to human life, so we need to understand how they develop and how to prevent them by inventing new therapeutic approaches, including new drugs and vaccines. Therefore, biology society is always eager to invent a better way to investigate viral pathogens, including infection mechanism, life cycle, drug response, etc. Therefore, the advances of new research platforms were always critical bottlenecks to researchers. The recent development of the organoid culture system widely opened new opportunities for human diseases related to viral pathogens. In particular, the organoid culture system was quickly applied to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 research, providing massive information about the virus and potential therapeutics such as cellular tropism, drug response, and crucial genes involved in viral replication and infection. This review provides a comprehensive summary of recent advances in intestinal organoid culture systems for viral pathogen research.