An In Vitro Model for Assessing Acute Lung Injury During Pancreatitis Development Using Primary Mouse Cell Co-cultures

Acute pancreatitis is a serious inflammatory disease of the pancreas that can lead to lung injury. Despite extensive research, the mechanisms underlying this complication are ill-defined. In recent years, in vitro co-culture systems have emerged as powerful tools for studying complex interactions between different cell types in disease. In the context of pancreatitis, pancreatic acinar epithelial cells produce and secrete digestive enzymes, and their cellular damage, death, and/or dysfunction is a major contributing factor to the onset of pancreatitis. Here, in this chapter we describe a co-culture system of acinar cells and lung epithelial progenitor/stem cells to model for lung injury associated with pancreatitis.