“…Overall, the co-culture systems can be set-up either by direct co-culture of both cell types or using compartmented systems, such as trans-wells or microfluidic chambers, to study solely the paracrine crosstalk and not the cell-cell signaling pathways that may occur. Many studies have explored this approach by co-culturing MSCs with mature cells in direct (Aguirre et al, 2010;Ball et al, 2004;Csaki et al, 2009;Deng et al, 2008;Strassburg et al, 2010;Takigawa et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2007) and indirect contact (Li et al, 2011;Luo et al, 2009;Wei et al, 2010). When comparing cultures of MSCs and osteoblasts alone with MSC/osteoblast co-cultures, for example, an increase in calcification over time is observed in co-culture.…”