Adipose and Muscle Cell Co-Culture System: A Novel In Vitro Tool to Mimic the In Vivo Cellular Environment

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Co-culture system provides a novel platform to study interaction between different cell types in an in-vitro method. The co-cultures techniques have played key role in the understanding of cell–cell communication and relevant for drug response analysis. Co-culture system could influence therapeutic drug response in a dose dependent manner which reflects the clinical situation in patients. Also, the co-culture system may reflect a more realistic environment that similar phenotypic and functional characteristics of in vivo conditions. We also suggest that the co-culture methods as a key tool to study the interaction between adipose and muscle tissue under various environments including drug responses, production and influence of secretory factors, cell growth, and development. Therefore, the co-cultures method has been shown wide applications in cell biology study. ABSTRACT: A co-culture system allows researchers to investigate the complex interactions between two cell types under various environments, such as those that promote differentiation and growth as well as those that mimic healthy and diseased states, in vitro. In this paper, we review the most common co-culture systems for myocytes and adipocytes. The in vitro techniques mimic the in vivo environment and are used to investigate the causal relationships between different cell lines. Here, we briefly discuss mono-culture and co-culture cell systems and their applicability to the study of communication between two or more cell types, including adipocytes and myocytes. Also, we provide details about the different types of co-culture systems and their applicability to the study of metabolic disease, drug development, and the role of secretory factors in cell signaling cascades. Therefore, this review provides details about the co-culture systems used to study the complex interactions between adipose and muscle cells in various environments, such as those that promote cell differentiation and growth and those used for drug development.