Figure 2. Adhesion test with AGS and Caco2 cells on Met-5A monolayer.

A) Met-5A mesothelial monolayer was grown as described above. Caco2 and AGS cells were labeled with the DiI tracer and then seeded on the monolayer as above. After 1, 24 and 48 hours, co-cultures were washed, fixed and permeabilized. Nuclei were stained with DAPI. Bar: 200 µm. B) Quantitative analysis of the number of adherent DiI⁺ cells/mm² was performed as described in materials and methods. While after 1 hour of seeding both Caco2 and AGS cells adhere to the monolayer in equal amount, at the 24 and 48 hours time points the number of Caco2 cells is almost doubled compared to that of AGS, which increases only slightly but significantly over the time. Results are expressed as mean values ± IC 95%. Statistics: Student’s t test: *p <0.01 vs AGS 1 hour; **p <0.001 vs Caco2 1 hour and AGS 24 hours; ***p <0.01 vs AGS 1 hour and p  = NS vs AGS 24 hours; ****p <0.001 vs Caco2 24 hours.