Cancer systems biology: Live imaging of intestinal tissue in health and disease

Our understanding of the epithelial stem cell compartment of the intestine has seen tremendous progress over recent years. As a result, the crypt is progressively transforming into the primary model system to address fundamental questions about epithelial homeostasis, lineage differentiation and cancer development. Instrumental for these developments were genetic mouse models to identify and manipulate intestinal stem cells in vivo, as well as ex vivo organoid systems of mouse and human intestinal tissue. This review discusses the emergence of live cell imaging of intestinal biology and briefly touches on the potential of such studies to reveal cell biological phenomena that take place within an epithelium, such as heterotypic cell-cell interactions, cellular development and cell type-specific responses to tumorigenesis or infections.