CACO-2 is a human colon adenocarcinoma cell line that differentiates into enterocyte-like cells when cultured. The resulting polarized monolayers display microvilli, tight junctions, and brush-border enzymes, closely resembling the small intestinal epithelium.<\/p>
Widely used in pharmaceutical research, CACO-2 cells serve as an in vitro model to study intestinal permeability and drug absorption. They allow assessment of both passive diffusion and transporter-mediated processes, and permeability data generally correlate with human intestinal uptake.<\/p>
Although full differentiation requires about three weeks and variability in transporter expression can limit reproducibility, CACO-2 remains one of the most established and regulatory-accepted systems for predicting oral drug absorption and investigating epithelial transport mechanisms.<\/p>
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