Abstract
Implementations of suitable in vitro cell culture systems of the human intestine have been essential tools in the study of the interaction among organs, commensal microbiota, pathogens and parasites. Due to the great complexity exhibited by the intestinal tissue, researchers have been developing in vitro/ex vivo systems to diminish the gap between conventional cell culture models and the human intestine. These models are able to reproduce different structures and functional aspects of the tissue. In the present review, information is recapitulated on the most used models, such as cell culture, intestinal organoids, scaffold-based three-dimensional models, and organ-on-a-chip and their use in studying the interaction between human intestine and microbes, and their advantages and limitations are also discussed.
Highlights
The gastrointestinal (GI) tract, is the principal internal barrier of the body that separates human tissues from the external environment, including food, antigens, toxic molecules, xenobiotics and microbes
The cellular building block of this enteric surface is composed of diverse cells: enterocytes adapted for absorptive metabolic and digestive functions; goblet cells (GC), which secrete mucin, with the newly described specialized GC denominated the ‘sentinel goblet cell’ that are localized at the entrances of the colonic crypt and that play a main role in the protection against bacterial infection [5]; enteroendocrine cells, which secrete hormones; Paneth cells, at the bottom of the crypts, which deliver anti-microbial peptides; microfold cells, which are transporters of microbes and particles across the epithelial cell layer, playing a role in mucosal immunity; cup cells of unknown function [6] and chemosensory epithelial cells (Tuft cells), mainly in the small intestine [7]
According to data obtained from MetaHit and the Human Microbiome Project, the bacterial gut microbiota presents 2172 species classified into 12 different phyla, of which 93.5% belonged to Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes [21,22,23]
Summary
The gastrointestinal (GI) tract, is the principal internal barrier of the body that separates human tissues from the external environment, including food, antigens, toxic molecules, xenobiotics and microbes. In the GI barrier, cells must respond to and survive all of these multiple stimuli; they must ensure the capacity of the intestinal tissue to allow efficient transport of essential nutrients, these facts indicate that the intestinal ecosystem has significant functional complexity. Understanding the complex interaction among all of the elements present in the intestinal environment has been a main objective of research for the comprehension of homeostasis and diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), cancer and microbial infections (table 1)
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