ABOUT THIS POSITION

This internship will give you hands on experience with host-microbe interactions in the gut, focusing on the physical adhesion and invasion of bacteria on/into the gut tissue.

Bacterial adhesion to the intestinal wall is a crucial step in the colonization of both probiotic and pathogenic bacteria. Effective colonization of pathogens will allow subsequent invasion which will have health consequences for the host, such as travelers’ diarrhea. On the other hand, effective probiotic colonization might protect against pathogen adhesion by occupying binding sites and secreting protective factors against infection. There are extensive developments in the probiotic and nutrition industries to develop products, which can be probiotic strains or other food ingredients, that will protect against pathogenic bacterial adhesion and invasion. To investigate the effectiveness of such products, a proper research model is needed. At TNO we have a model with high physiological relevance to the in vivo gut, the InTESTine™. The model uses ex vivo intestinal tissue explants which have in vivo tissue architecture and cell type diversity, including mucus producing cells. The produced mucus adds an extra barrier for bacterial adhesion, invasion, and translocation thus consequently impacts largely the host-microbe interaction. Therefore, this model has several advantages compared to the commonly used Caco-2 cell line. In this internship, the student will help develop and perform ex vivo and in vitro experiments to study bacterial adhesion and invasion into tissue explants from human and animal donors. Experiments will include bacterial culturing techniques, quantification of bacteria by different methods, tissue handling and processing to use in the InTESTine™ platform, and perform assays to study the host-microbe interaction e.g. tissue viability.
The student will become part of the Human Cell Biology research team of approximately 15 researchers and technicians. Additionally, you will work with researchers from the Microbiology team. The internship should be performed at our research location in Leiden.