Subsets of human tuft cells retain their proliferative capacity throughout life and can act as a damage-induced pool of regenerative stem cells, report Huang et al. in Nature.

Organoids containing all human intestinal cell types were generated by the researchers from a single mature proliferating human tuft cell. Organoids engineered to lack tuft cells did not regenerate after irradiation, unlike those containing tuft cells. Although cells bearing leucine-rich repeat-containing G-protein-coupled receptor 5 (LGR5) are the most common intestinal stem cell type, they are highly sensitive to injury. Therefore, tuft cells could provide a reserve stem cell pool after loss of LGR5+ cells.