Colon-on-a-plate

Commonly used acronym: CoaP

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Scope of the method

The Method relates to
  • Animal health
  • Human health
The Method is situated in
  • Basic Research
  • Translational - Applied Research
Type of method
  • In vitro - Ex vivo
This method makes use of
  • Animal derived cells / tissues / organs
Species from which cells/tissues/organs are derived
Fecal material from humans or animals

Description

Method keywords
  • gut health
  • gut microbiota
  • colonic metabolism
  • metabolomics
  • metagenomics
  • Correlation in vitro in vivo
  • predictivity
  • humans
  • companion animals
  • farm animals
  • high throughput
  • screening
  • interindividual variabiity
Scientific area keywords
  • fibre
  • prebiotics
  • probiotics
  • postbiotics
  • symbiotics
  • LBP
  • HMO
  • proteins
  • carbohydrates
  • nutraceuticals
  • plant extracts
  • polyphenols
  • api
  • drugs
  • digestion
  • in vitro
  • ex vivo
Method description

The Colon-on-a-plate® technology is a high-throughput biorelevant in vitro simulation of the physiology and microbiology of the colon. This robust screening technology is not limited to comparing the impact of tens of test product on the microbiome, but also offers insight into the factors influencing the response of the microbiome towards these products. These factors include - but are not limited to - inter individual variability, disease status, mucosal compartment, impact of pathogens, use of antibiotics and differences in gastrointestinal physiology, potentially leading to hundreds of tests in parallel. The implementation of a robust statistical approach provides a detailed insight on the interplay between test products and the gut microbiota, reducing consumables and budget requirements. Colon-on-a-plate® has been optimized to perform a short-term simulation, up to 48 hours. Despite the small volumes of the simulation, multiple readouts will provide insights in relative and absolute changes in microbial community composition, microbial fermentation activity and impact on the microbiome-host interactions using a variety of human cell assays.

Method status
  • History of use
  • Internally validated
  • Published in peer reviewed journal

Pros, cons & Future potential

Advantages
  • - Validated with in vivo data (IVIVC)
  • - In vivo predictivity in 48 hours
  • - High throughput (100s of conditions in parallel)
  • - Low complexity
  • - Cost efficient
  • - Takes into account interindividual variability
Modifications

The Colon-on-a-plate can

  • - incorporate the simulation of the mucosa-associated microbial community,
  • - be coupled with off-line cell assays to evaluate host-microbiome interactions,
  • - represent the microbiome of animals and humans, healthy or diseased and of all ages.

An adaptation of the Colon-on-a-plate is ProDigest's Short-term colon, which follows the same principles, but enables kinetic insights.

References, associated documents and other information

References

Perreau, C., Thabuis, C., Verstrepen, L., Ghyselinck, J., & Marzorati, M. (2023). Ex vivo colonic fermentation of NUTRIOSE® exerts immuno-modulatory properties and strong anti-inflammatory effects. Nutrients, 15(19), 4229.

Marzorati, M., Ghyselinck, J., Van den Abbeele, P., Maruszak, A., & Harthoorn, L. (2023). Galactooligosaccharide (GOS) reduces branched short-chain fatty acids, ammonium, and pH in a short-term colonic fermentation model. Applied Microbiology, 3(1), 90-103.

Van den Abbeele, P., Verstrepen, L., Ghyselinck, J., Albers, R., Marzorati, M., & Mercenier, A. (2020). A novel non-digestible, carrot-derived polysaccharide (cRG-I) selectively modulates the human gut microbiota while promoting gut barrier integrity: an integrated in vitro approach. Nutrients, 12(7), 1917.

Organisations

ProDigest
Gastrointestinal Expertise
Belgium
Flemish Region