Co-Culture of Intestinal Epithelial and Stromal Cells in 3D Collagen-Based Environments

Abstract

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.

KEYWORDS::

• CRL-2102
• epithelium
• gut
• Rat-2

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank N Green (University of Sheffield, UK) for her help with the collagen gel constructs, S Jones (School of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, UK) for histological processing, J Miller (Animal Health Trust, Newmarket, UK) for performing the immunohistochemical studies, and L Hughes, W Spinner and F Thompson (University of Bristol) for laboratory help. Preparation of this paper by ME Viney was undertaken during the tenure of a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by a grant from the Wellcome Trust. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Wellcome Trust. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.