Challenges of applying multicellular tumor spheroids in preclinical phase

Cancer Cell International

Sangwoo Kwon¹  Kyung Sook Kim¹  Se Jik Han² 

[1] Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, 02447, Seoul, Korea;Department of Biomedical Engineering, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, 02447, Seoul, Korea;Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, 02447, Seoul, Korea;

关键词: Multicellular tumor spheroids;    Drug screening;    Therapeutic efficacy;    High-throughput;    Microfluidics;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12935-021-01853-8

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

The three-dimensional (3D) multicellular tumor spheroids (MCTs) model is becoming an essential tool in cancer research as it expresses an intermediate complexity between 2D monolayer models and in vivo solid tumors. MCTs closely resemble in vivo solid tumors in many aspects, such as the heterogeneous architecture, internal gradients of signaling factors, nutrients, and oxygenation. MCTs have growth kinetics similar to those of in vivo tumors, and the cells in spheroid mimic the physical interaction of the tumors, such as cell-to-cell and cell-to-extracellular matrix interactions. These similarities provide great potential for studying the biological properties of tumors and a promising platform for drug screening and therapeutic efficacy evaluation. However, MCTs are not well adopted as preclinical tools for studying tumor behavior and therapeutic efficacy up to now. In this review, we addressed the challenges with MCTs application and discussed various efforts to overcome the challenges.

【 授权许可】

CC BY