Method Profile
A coupled intestinal–cartilage chip to study gut-derived soluble signals, followed by separate metabolite tests in osteoarthritis-derived cartilage organoids.
Comparing probiotic-conditioned gut effluent and identified metabolites as candidate modifiers of cartilage-organoid inflammatory and matrix responses.
A Caco-2 epithelial gut module linked to human bone-marrow-stromal-cell cartilage organoids; separate metabolite tests used cartilage organoids made from chondrocytes pooled from three osteoarthritis donors.
Integrated gut–cartilage comparison with and without probiotic-conditioned effluent; individual metabolite testing in patient-derived cartilage organoids with the gut module empty.
Integrated chip model
Separate intestinal and cartilage compartments linked by controlled perfusion; cartilage comparisons included probiotic-exposed and unexposed gut effluent.
Patient-derived metabolite test
Pooled chondrocytes from three osteoarthritis donors formed cartilage organoids; five individual metabolites were compared with untreated organoids over 72 hours.
Separate the integrated gut-effluent experiment from the direct compound experiment; treat independent chips as technical/experimental units rather than independent patients.
Probiotic-exposed gut effluent versus comparator chip conditions, followed by five separate metabolite treatments in pooled-donor OA cartilage organoids.
The OA chondrocytes came from three donors and were pooled; Figure 10B/C reports four independent chips per group and Figure 10F reports three, not additional independent donors.
Untreated patient-derived cartilage organoids for direct metabolite testing; chip conditions without probiotic exposure for the integrated system.
Direct metabolite conditions reduced secreted IL-6, MMP13 and CTX-2 and altered cartilage-formation and degradation markers; reported effects varied by metabolite.
A microbe–gut–cartilage chip linked a probiotic-exposed intestinal module to human cartilage organoids. Five enriched metabolites were subsequently tested on cartilage organoids made from pooled cells from three osteoarthritis donors.
