Table 2.

Important functions of intestinal epithelial cells.

IEC	Function	Reviewed in:
Enterocytes and/or colonocytes	Absorption (nutrients, ions, and water), sensing of microbes, secretion of antimicrobials, barrier formation.	Wells et al. (2011), Yu et al. (2012), Kunisawa and Kiyono (2013), Allaire et al. (2018a), Lomax et al. (2019), Pelaseyed and Hansson (2020), Iftekhar and Sigal (2021), Seo et al. (2021), and Shu et al. (2023)
Enteroendocrine cells (EEC and ECC)	Hormone secretion; luminal sensing (e.g., nutrients, microbes, microbial metabolites); link in gut-brain axis; homeostasis (e.g., intestinal, metabolic, immune).	Peterson and Artis (2014), Arora et al. (2021), Hosseinkhani et al. (2021), Koopman et al. (2021), Xu et al. (2021), Osinski et al. (2022), Wei et al. (2022), Yu and Li (2022), Bayrer et al. (2023), and Meyer and Duca (2023)
Goblet cells (GC)	Secretion of mucins, antimicrobials, chemokines, and cytokines; antigen delivery to APC, barrier formation.	Pelaseyed et al. (2014), McCauley and Guasch (2015), Knoop and Newberry (2018), Allaire et al. (2018b), Hansson (2020), Fekete and Buret (2023), and Liu et al. (2023)
Microfold cells (MC)	Immunosurveillance; antigen sampling, transcytosis and transfer to APC; mucosal immunity.	Mabbott et al. (2013), Ohno (2016), Kimura (2018), Kobayashi et al. (2019), and Kanaya et al. (2020)
Paneth cells (PC)	Secretion of antimicrobials; sensing of microbes; efferocytosis; support of intestinal stem cells; mucosal immunity.	Lueschow and McElroy (2020), Barreto et al. (2022), Cui et al. (2023), and Wallaeys et al. (2023)
Tuft cells (TC)	Immunosurveillance; mucosal immunity; epithelial repair; chemosensory sentinel.	Schneider et al. (2019), Strine and Wilen (2022), and Bas et al. (2023)

APC, antigen presenting cells.