Gut re-action

A group of New York academics has developed a protocol to turn human pluripotent stem cells into gut neurons, and believes it could provide the first non-surgical treatment for Hirschsprung's disease - a rare disorder in which the large intestine develops without the neurons that normally control peristalsis. But the system could have more far-reaching implications, most notably for using the cells to test CNS drug candidates for GI side effects.

The enteric nervous system controls the wave-like muscle contractions that move food through the digestive tract. It contains a few dozen cell types and, in total, has more neurons than the spinal cord. But in Hirschsprung's disease, the neural precursors that normally migrate into the lower GI tract and give rise to the enteric nervous system fail to do so. ...