Background: The absorptive and goblet cells are the main cellular types encountered in the intestine epithelium. The cell lineage Caco-2 is a model commonly used to reproduce the features of the bowel epithelium. However, there is a strong debate regarding the value of Caco-2 cell culture to mimick in vivo situation. Indeed, some authors report in Caco-2 a low paracellular permeability and an ease of access of highly diffusible small molecules to the microvilli, due to an almost complete lack of mucus. The HT29-5M21 intestinal cell lineage is a mucin-secreting cellular population. A co-culture system carried out in a serum-free medium and comprising both Caco-2 and HT29-5M21 cells was developed. The systematic use of a co-culture system requires the characterization of the monolayer under a given experimental procedure.
Caco-2 cells are widely used for both mechanistic studies in molecular cell biology as well as for studies aiming at estimating, in vitro, the bioavailability of drug candidates, xenobiotics, food compounds …. This results largely from the spontaneous differentiation of this human colon adenocarcinoma line into enterocytes-like cells in classical culture conditions, as well as from the use of bicameral culture inserts including porosity calibrated filters. Although Caco-2 cells represent the current "golden standard" of in vitro models of the human intestinal barrier, there is a trend to develop new systems mimicking more closely the intestinal epithelium for pharmaceutical and toxicological studies. In particular, goblet cells may bring a main constituent of the intestinal barrier as secreting mucus and contribute to the permeability met in vivo. In addition, gut associated M cells offer a putative way for oral delivery of nanoencapsulated therapeutic peptides and mucosal vaccines.
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