Tube-Shaped In-Vitro Intestinal Gut Model with 3D Isotropic Medium Supply for Bacterial Symbiosis

This paper describes a tube-shaped in vitro intestinal gut model achieving both isotropic medium supply and stable co-culture with bacteria. Our tube-shaped device consists of a collagen/Matrigel tube as a scaffold for intestinal cells and glass/silicone tubes at both ends for perfusion. We confirmed intestinal cells (Caco-2) can be maintained in the luminal part with nutrient-free buffer flow mimicking bacterial suspensions and demonstrated the co-culture of Escherichia-coli (E. coli) in the Caco-2 cultured tube-shaped device. We believe this device provides simple but stable co-culture model with intestinal cells and bacteria and contributes to medical field research relating intestinal bacteria.