Live-Cell Sender-Receiver Co-cultures for Quantitative Measurement of Paracrine Signaling Dynamics, Gene Expression, and Drug Response

Paracrine signaling is a fundamental process regulating tissue development, repair, and pathogenesis of diseases such as cancer. Herein we describe a method for quantitatively measuring paracrine signaling dynamics, and resultant gene expression changes, in living cells using genetically encoded signaling reporters and fluorescently tagged gene loci. We discuss considerations for selecting paracrine “sender-receiver” cell pairs, appropriate reporters, the use of this system to ask diverse experimental questions and screen drugs blocking intracellular communication, data collection, and the use of computational approaches to model and interpret these experiments.