MUC2 and irritable bowel syndrome: To study the different functionality of intestinal cells or an inflammatory environment under diseased conditions, e.g., in IBD, co-culture of Caco-2 and HT-29-MTX cells have proven to successfully mimic the intestinal inflammatory status in IBD as seen through reduced Zona occludens 1 (Zo-1) and increased mucin 2 (MUC2) expression [52].