Journal: Materials Today Bio
Article Title: Biomimetic villi-crypt scaffold-on-chip with tunable mechanical properties for intestinal epithelium modeling
doi: 10.1016/j.mtbio.2026.103134
Figure Lengend Snippet: Villi-crypt in vitro model. Resazurin reduction assay performed (a) over the Villi-(F)-Crypt and Villi-(R)-Crypt scaffolds in the presence and absence of gelatin to aid cell attachment ( n = 3 scaffolds for each condition). (b) Resazurin reduction assay performed for long-term cultures in the absence of gelatin (two independent experiments, n = 5 scaffolds for each condition of each experiment). Data are expressed as mean ± standard deviation. ∗p < 0.05; ∗∗p < 0.01; ∗∗∗p < 0.001. (c) Phalloidin (green) and DAPI (blue) fluorescence microscopy of Caco-2 cells grown for 21 days on the two compositions tested at two different magnifications. (c i ) Top and (c ii ) section view of the scaffolds. Scale bars represent 500 μm and 100 μm. Objectives are 4 × and 10 × , respectively. (d) Confocal images of Villi-(R)-Crypt scaffold cultured with the Caco-2 cells. (d i ) Schematic of the different confocal planes acquired. (d ii ) and (d iii ) details at two different magnifications of villi sections, scaffold baselines and crypt base; displaying the homogeneous covering of the scaffold and junctions formed between cells ( V = villi, C = crypt). Scale bars represent 200 μm (d ii , 10 × objective) and 50 μm (d iii , 20 × objective). (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
Article Snippet: Cell cultures over scaffolds: Human epithelial cell line Caco-2 (HTB-37, ATCC, USA) was cultured in 75 cm 2 tissue culture polystyrene flasks in complete DMEM high glucose (Sigma Aldrich, pc D6546) supplemented with 1% penicillin-streptomycin (Sigma Aldrich, pc P0781), 1% L-glutamine (Sigma Aldrich, pc G7513) and 10% FBS (Invitrogen, USA) in a humidified incubator set at 37 °C with 95% air and 5% CO 2 .
Techniques: In Vitro, Cell Attachment Assay, Standard Deviation, Fluorescence, Microscopy, Cell Culture