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.
Keywords: intestinal cell culture; microbiota; organ-on-a-chip; organoids; parasites; three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds.