Microsphere-Enabled Modular Formation of Miniaturized In Vitro Breast Cancer Models

In search of effective therapeutics for breast cancers, establishing physiologically relevant in vitro models is of great benefit to facilitate the clinical translation. Despite extensive progresses, it remains to develop the tumor models maximally recapturing the key pathophysiological attributes of their native counterparts. Therefore, the current study aimed to develop a microsphere-enabled modular approach toward the formation of in vitro breast tumor models with the capability of incorporating various selected cells while retaining spatial organization. Poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) microspheres (150-200 mm) with tailorable pore size and surface topography are fabricated and used as carriers to respectively lade with breast tumor-associated cells. Culture of cell-laden microspheres assembled within a customized microfluidic chamber allowed to form 3D tumor models with spatially controlled cell distribution. The introduction of endothelial cell-laden microspheres into cancer-cell laden microspheres at different ratios would induce angiogenesis within the culture to yield vascularized tumor. Evaluation of anticancer drugs such as doxorubicin and Cediranib on the tumor models do demonstrate corresponding physiological responses. Clearly, with the ability to modulate microsphere morphology, cell composition and spatial distribution, microsphere-enabled 3D tumor tissue formation offers a high flexibility to satisfy the needs for pathophysiological study, anticancer drug screening or design of personalized treatment.

A mouse model of lung cancer induced via intranasal injection for anticancer drug screening and evaluation of pathology

The pathologies and lethality of lung cancers are associated with smoking, lifestyle, and genomic factors. Several experimental mouse models of lung cancer, including those induced via intrapulmonary injection and intratracheal injection, have been reported for evaluating the pharmacological effect of drugs. However, these models are not sufficient for evaluating the efficacy of drugs during screening, as these direct injection models ignore the native processes of cancer progression in vivo, resulting in the inadequate pathological formation of lung cancer. In the present study, we developed a novel intranasal injection model of lung cancer simulating the native lung cancer pathology for anticancer drug screening. A mouse lung cancer cell line (Lewis lung carcinoma; LCC) was intranasally injected into mouse lungs, and injected cell number-dependent cancer proliferation was apparent in both the left and right lungs. Human non-small-cell lung cancer (NCI-H460) cells were also intranasally injected into nude mice and similarly showed injected cell number-dependent cancer growth. For the pharmacological evaluation of cisplatin, two different treatment frequencies were tested four times per month and twice a month. The intranasal injection model confirmed that cisplatin suppressed lung cancer progression to a greater extent under the more frequent treatment condition. In conclusion, these results indicated that our intranasal injection model is a powerful tool for investigating lung cancer pathology and may aid in the development of new anti-lung cancer agents.

Transcriptomic Profiling of 3D Glioblastoma Tumoroids for the Identification of Mechanisms Involved in Anticancer Drug Resistance

BACKGROUND/AIM

Among various types of brain tumors, glioblastoma is the most malignant and highly aggressive brain tumor that possesses a high resistance against anticancer drugs. To understand the underlined mechanisms of tumor drug resistance, a new and more effective research approach is required. The three dimensional (3D) in vitro cell culture models could be a potential approach to study cancer features and biology, as well as screen for anti-cancer agents due to the close mimicry of the 3D tumor microenvironments.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

With our developed 3D alginate scaffolds, Ilumina RNA-sequencing was used to transcriptomically analyze and compare the gene expression profiles between glioblastoma cells in traditional 2-dimensional (2D) monolayer and in 3D Ca-alginate scaffolds at day 14. To verify the reliability and accuracy of Illumina RNA-Sequencing data, ATP-binding cassette transporter genes were chosen for quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction) verification.

RESULTS

The results showed that 7,411 and 3,915 genes of the 3D glioblastoma were up-regulated and down-regulated, respectively, compared with the 2D-cultured glioblastoma. Furthermore, the Kyoto Encyclopaedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analysis revealed that genes related to the cell cycle and DNA replication were enriched in the group of down-regulated gene. On the other hand, the genes involved in mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling, autophagy, drug metabolism through cytochrome P450, and ATP-binding cassette transporter were found in the up-regulated gene collection.

CONCLUSION

3D glioblastoma tumoroids might potentially serve as a powerful platform for exploring glioblastoma biology. They can also be valuable in anti-glioblastoma drug screening, as well as the identification of novel molecular targets in clinical treatment of human glioblastoma.

Water-Templated, Polysaccharide-rich Bioartificial 3D Microarchitectures as Extra-Cellular Matrix Bioautomatons

This is the first report of exploiting the "quasi-spherical" shape of water molecules for recapitulating a true human extracellular matrix (ECM). Herein, water behaved as a quasi-spherical porogen, for engineering polysaccharide-rich and chemically defined 3D-microarchitecture, with semi-interpenetrating networks (S-IPNs). Furthermore, their viscoelastic behavior along with a heterogeneous, fibroporous morphology, facilitated instructive, self-remodeling of the bioartificial scaffolds, thence effectively permitting and promoting the growth of 3D tumor spheroids of divergent origins. The hybrid composites displayed reproducible, uniform tumor spheroids with a Z-depth of ∼65 ± 2 μm in case of human adenocarcinoma (DLD-1) and ∼54 ± 3 μm for human glioblastoma cells (U-251) (vs. nonuniform spheroids, on Agarose matrix). Thereafter, their capacity for anticancer drug screening was examined using limited cancer drugs. The conflicting drug screening results for Etoposide's reduced efficacy on glioblastoma cells cultured on our 3D matrix could be ascribed to decreased drug access and thus lower ingression. Nonetheless, adenocarcinoma's resistance to Camptothecin was paralleled. Moreover, their potential for real-time, high-content, phenotypic precision oncology was affirmed by the exceptional transparency of the synthesized composite. Since this 3D microarchitecture typifies ECM bioautomaton, this matrix can also be wielded for precision oncology.

In Search of Outliers. Mining for Protein Kinase Inhibitors Based on Their Anti-Proliferative NCI-60 Cell Lines Profile

Protein kinases play a pivotal role in signal transduction, protein synthesis, cell growth and proliferation. Their deregulation represents the basis of pathogenesis for numerous diseases such as cancer and pathologies with cardiovascular, nervous and inflammatory components. Protein kinases are an important target in the pharmaceutical industry, with 48 protein kinase inhibitors (PKI) already approved on the market as treatments for different afflictions including several types of cancer. The present work focuses on facilitating the identification of new PKIs with antitumoral potential through the use of data-mining and basic statistics. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) granted access to the results of numerous previously tested compounds on 60 tumoral cell lines (NCI-60 panel). Our approach involved analyzing the NCI database to identify compounds that presented similar growth inhibition (GI) profiles to that of existing PKIs, but different from approved oncologic drugs with other mechanisms of action, using descriptive statistics and statistical outliers. Starting from 34,000 compounds present in the database, we filtered 400 which displayed selective inhibition on certain cancer cell lines similar to that of several already-approved PKIs.

Electrospun Polylactic Acid (PLLA) Microtube Array Membrane (MTAM)-An Advanced Substrate for Anticancer Drug Screening

The advent of personalized cancer treatment resulted in the shift from the administration of cytotoxic drugs with broad activity spectrum to a targeted tumor-specific therapy. Aligned to this development, the focus of this study revolved around the application of our novel and patented microtube array membrane (MTAM) in the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) developed an HFA (hollow fiber assay) assay; hereinafter known as MTAM/HFA. Electrospun poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) MTAM was sterilized and loaded with cell lines/patient derived tumor cells (PDTC) and subcutaneously implanted into the backs of BALB/C mice. Anticancer drugs were administered at the respective time points and the respective MTAMs were retrieved and the viability tumor cells within were quantified with the MTT assay. Results revealed that the MTAMs were excellent culture substrate for various cancer cell lines and PDTCs (patient derived tumor cells). Compared to traditional HFA systems that utilize traditional hollow fibers, MTAM/HFA revealed superior drug sensitivity for a wide range of anticancer drug classes. Additionally, the duration for each test was <14 days; all this while capable of producing similar trend outcome to the current gold-standard xenograft models. These benefits were observed in both the in vitro and in vivo stages, making it a highly practical phenotypic-based solution that could potentially be applied in personalized medicine.

Scientific concepts and applications of integrated discrete multiple organ co-culture technology

Over several decades, animals have been used as models to investigate the human-specific drug toxicity, but the outcomes are not always reliably extrapolated to the humans in vivo. Appropriate in vitro human-based experimental system that includes in vivo parameters is required for the evaluation of multiple organ interaction, multiple organ/organ-specific toxicity, and metabolism of xenobiotic compounds to avoid the use of animals for toxicity testing. One such versatile in vitro technology in which human primary cells could be used is integrated discrete multiple organ co-culture (IdMOC). IdMOC system adopts wells-within-well concept that facilitates co-culture of cells from different organs in a discrete manner, separately in the respective media in the smaller inner wells which are then interconnected by an overlay of a universal medium in the large containing well. This novel in vitro approach mimics the in vivo situation to a great extent, and employs cells from multiple organs that are physically separated but interconnected by a medium that mimics the systemic circulation and provides for multiple organ interaction. Applications of IdMOC include assessment of multiple organ toxicity, drug distribution, organ-specific toxicity, screening of anticancer drugs, metabolic cytotoxicity, etc.

Soluble Expression and Purification of the Catalytic Domain of Human Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor 2 in Escherichia coli

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) plays a key role in angiogenesis through binding to its specific receptors, which mainly occurs to VEGF receptor 2 (VEGFR-2), a kinase insert domain-containing receptor. Therefore, the disruption of VEGFR-2 signaling provides a promising therapeutic approach for the treatment of cancer by inhibiting abnormal or tumorinduced angiogenesis. To explore this potential, we expressed the catalytic domain of VEGFR- 2 (VEGFR-2-CD) as a soluble active kinase in Escherichia coli. The recombinant protein was purified and the VEGFR-2-CD activity was investigated. The obtained VEGFR-2-CD showed autophosphorylation activity and phosphate transfer activity comparable to the commercial enzyme. Furthermore, the IC50 value of known VEGFR-2 inhibitor was determined using the purified VEGFR-2-CD. These results indicated a possibility for functional and economical VEGFR-2-CD expression in E. coli to use for inhibitor screening.

Silicate fiber-based 3D cell culture system for anticancer drug screening

BACKGROUND

Three-dimensional (3D) in vitro cultures can recapitulate the physiological in vivo microenvironment. 3D Modeling techniques have been investigated and applied in anticancer drug screening.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A silicate fiber scaffold was used for 3D cell cultures, and used to model the efficacy of anticancer drugs, such as mytomicin C and doxorubicin.

RESULTS

A unique 3D structure was observed in 13 human tumor cell lines on scaffold, and these cells exhibited higher drug resistance than cells in two-dimensional (2D) cultures. Furthermore, the production of lactate and expression of the nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB)-regulated genes B cell lymphoma-2 (BCL2), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were higher in 3D cultures than in 2D cultures.

CONCLUSION

These findings suggest that a 3D model using a silicate fiber scaffold can mimic features of cancer, and is also a suitable model for the evaluation of anticancer drugs in vitro.