To begin, select a 24-well plate containing inserts with 0.4 micron filters. Using a pipette, add 500 microliters of HBSS below and above the filter inserts. Then close the multi-well plate and place it in an incubator for two hours.
After incubation, carefully aspirate the HBSS from the plate. Prepare a cell-free collagen solution in a sterile 50 milliliter tube in DMEM on ice. Add 250 microliters of collagen above the membrane filter and place the lid on the plate.
Allow the solution to polymerize at room temperature. Next, remove the L-929 fibroblast cell culture from the incubator. Add two milliliters of a pre-warmed trypsin EDTA solution to the flask and place it in an incubator for three to five minutes.
Transfer the cell suspension to a sterile 15 milliliter tube and centrifuge at 645 G for five minutes. Using a vacuum pump, aspirate the supernatant and resuspend the pellet in one milliliter of DMEM. Add 20 microliters of cell suspension into a tube containing 20 microliters of Trypan Blue solution.
And use a cell counting chamber to evaluate the cell density. Next, remove the U-937 monocyte cell culture from the incubator. Centrifuge the cell suspension and resuspend the pellet in one milliliter of RPMI.
After ensuring cells are homogeneously suspended, count them using a cell counting chamber. Next, prepare cell suspensions containing 50, 000 L-929 and 15, 000 U-937 cells respectively in 50 microliters of DMEM. Add each 50 microliter cell suspension to 450 microliters of collagen and mix thoroughly.
Overlay the pre-coded cell-free lamina propria with 500 microliters of the collagen cell solution. Close the plate and place it in an incubator for two hours to allow the solution to set. Next, remove the Caco-2 cell culture from the incubator.
Using a vacuum pump, aspirate the medium and rinse the cells with 10 milliliters of PBS. Add five milliliters of PBS trypsin EDTA solution and place it in an incubator for five to eight minutes. Then centrifuge the cell suspension and resuspend the pellet in one milliliter of DMEM.
After counting, prepare a cell suspension containing 150, 000 Caco-2 cells in 50 microliters of DMEM. Place the plate in a laminar flow hood for 10 minutes before transferring it to the incubator. After 30 minutes, add 500 microliters of the DMEM above the reconstructed model and 500 microliters below the filter and return the plate to the incubator.
The next day, carefully replace the medium with 500 microliters of fresh DMEM above and below the filter respectively.
