Guest Editors
Francesca Truzzi
Università di Bologna Viale Fanin, Department of Agricultural and Food Science - DISTAL Alma Mater Studiorum
She is a biologist with a PhD in molecular and regenerative medicine. She has a long track record in cell culture with experience in in vitro three dimensional (3D) systems of healthy and cancer cells of different human tissues. She works at the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences of the University of Bologna, where she is the responsible for the laboratory of human cell culture. Her experience is related to studying cutaneous biology, with particularly attention for healthy and tumour skin cultures, and since 2017, she is studying the effects of food and vegetables extracts on human health, with particular attention to the effects of foods on colon physiology and diseases by using several in vitro intestinal models.
Giovanni Dinelli
University of Bologna, Dpt. of Agricultural and Food Sciences
He is a Full Professor at the Department of Agricultural Science (University of Bologna), Director of the Master in Organic Productions (University of Bologna). He coordinates a research group devoted to studying low-impact production systems (organic farming), the effect of agricultural practices and environmental factors on the quality of agricultural production, the effect of nutrition on people's health. From 2004, he is the coordinator of a research group involved in the study of nutraceutical compounds produced by various minor and significant crops to improve the knowledge on the role of primary production in the sector of functional food, with particular emphasis on the relationship between agricultural practices and nutritional/functional properties of organic foodstuff on human health.
Collection Overview
The study of intestinal diseases and intestinal cell-cell interactions face challenges due to the limited accessibility of fresh human tissue, which is challenging to obtain and has a short life span. In vitro modeling is an essential alternative to the use of animals in research, and much progress has been made. These models are employed to assist in studying complex in vivo phenomena in a simplified context, allowing conditions that are well-controlled and reproducible for the evaluation of cell response. Different models of a healthy intestine consider several aspects of its structure: epithelial cells and integrity, dendritic cells and dermis, immune cells and inflammation, and microbiome. Several complexes in vitro models of healthy intestinal tissue have been developed; however, reproducible protocols for maintaining long-term primary cell cultures from intestinal tissue samples still pose a challenge. In in vitro models, technological advances in biomaterials and micro-engineering fields are supplemented by simpler biological studies, most often using cell lines. This interplay is now being enabled using in vitro dynamic systems, where the combined use of cell culture techniques, microfluidics, biomaterials, classical microbiology, and a touch of genetic expression profiling have converged.
This Methods Collection aims to bring together the wide range of intestinal in vitro models that have been developed until now, both static cell-based models and dynamic systems, thus providing detailed state of the art protocols currently used in human gut physiology.
