The establishment of a three-dimensional (3D) epithelial structure and cytodifferentiation in vitro is necessary to recapitulate in vivo-relevant structure and function of the human intestine. Here, we describe an experimental protocol to build an organomimetic gut-on-a-chip microdevice that allows inducing 3D morphogenesis of human intestinal epithelium using Caco-2 cells or intestinal organoid cells. Under physiological flow and physical motions, intestinal epithelium spontaneously recreates 3D epithelial morphology in a gut-on-a-chip that offers enhanced mucus production, epithelial barrier, and longitudinal host-microbe co-culture. This protocol may provide implementable strategies to advance traditional in vitro static cultures, human microbiome studies, and pharmacological testing.
Keywords: Gut-on-a-chip; Human intestinal epithelium; In vitro model; Morphogenesis; Organoid.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.