Porcine Ex Vivo Intestinal Segment Model

This chapter describes the use of the porcine ex vivo intestinal segment model. This includes the advantages and disadvantages of the segment model and a detailed description of the isolation and culture as well as the applications of the porcine ex vivo intestinal segment model in practice. Compared to the Ussing chamber (Chap. 24) the porcine ex vivo small intestinal segment model is a relatively simple to use intestinal tissue model. The main difference being that the tissue segment is not mounted in a chamber, but is freely floating in a solution. Therefore the ex vivo intestinal segment model does not distinguish between the apical and basolateral side of the tissue. The intestinal segments can be obtained from various anatomical regions of the small intestine (e.g. duodenum, jejunum, ileum or even the colon) and the segments consist of various cell types (e.g. epithelial cells, paneth cells, goblet cells, enterochromaffin cells and enteroendocrine cells). The intestinal segment model has been shown to be a suitable tool to study compound and location specific effects on the release of gastrointestinal hormones and gastrointestinal metabolism of endocannabinoids and related compounds.