Co-Culture in ThinCert Cell Culture Inserts

Co-cultures with cell culture inserts are widely used to study mesenchymal-epithelial interactions during normal and tumoral development. In this application note such a co-culture model using MCF7 mammary carcinoma cells, human fibroblasts and ThinCert™ cell culture inserts from Greiner Bio-One GmbH is described. The results show that the use of ThinCert™ cell culture inserts with small pores (0.4 µm) guarantees that primarily paracrine signaling and not direct cell-cell contact accounts for the observed effects.