Robotic Production of Cancer Cell Spheroids with an Aqueous Two-phase System for Drug Testing |
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Authors: | Stephanie Lemmo Ham Ehsan Atefi Darcy Fyffe Hossein Tavana |
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Institution: | 1.Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Akron |
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Abstract: | Cancer cell spheroids present a relevant in vitro model of avascular tumors for anti-cancer drug testing applications. A detailed protocol for producing both mono-culture and co-culture spheroids in a high throughput 96-well plate format is described in this work. This approach utilizes an aqueous two-phase system to confine cells into a drop of the denser aqueous phase immersed within the second aqueous phase. The drop rests on the well surface and keeps cells in close proximity to form a single spheroid. This technology has been adapted to a robotic liquid handler to produce size-controlled spheroids and expedite the process of spheroid production for compound screening applications. Spheroids treated with a clinically-used drug show reduced cell viability with increase in the drug dose. The use of a standard micro-well plate for spheroid generation makes it straightforward to analyze viability of cancer cells of drug-treated spheroids with a micro-plate reader. This technology is straightforward to implement both robotically and with other liquid handling tools such as manual pipettes. |
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Keywords: | Bioengineering Issue 98 Cancer Cell Spheroid 3D Culture Robotic High Throughput Co-Culture Drug Screening |
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