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Co-culture of intestinal epithelial and stromal cells in 3D collagen-based environments
M E Viney1, A J Bullock, M J Day
1University of Bristol, UK. mark.viney@bristol.ac.uk
Aim:
To investigate the co-culture of established intestinal epithelial cell lines and stromal cells in a series of collagen-based environments for production of tissue-engineered intestinal epithelium for in vitro investigations.
Materials & Methods:
Intestinal epithelial cells were co-cultured with fibroblasts on a range of supporting collagen matrices including commercially available Promogran and on collagen-based gels.
Results:
Epithelial growth was achieved with one combination of vimentin-expressing stromal and cytokeratin-expressing intestinal epithelial cells grown on collagen gels supplemented with Matrigel, and held at an air-liquid interface.
Conclusions:
Collagen-based gels can support the co-culture of intestinal epithelial and stromal cells resulting in the growth of an epithelium that has some morphological similarity to normal intestinal tissue.
