Preparation and characterization of size-controlled glioma spheroids using agarose hydrogel microwells

Treatment of glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive type of primary brain tumors, is a major medical challenge and the development of new alternatives requires simple yet realistic models for these tumors. In vitro spheroid models offer attractive platforms to mimic the tumor behavior in vivo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2019-01, Vol.14 (1), p.e0211078-e0211078
Main Authors: Mirab, Fereshtehsadat, Kang, You Jung, Majd, Sheereen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anticancer properties
Antineoplastic agents
Apoptosis
Biology
Biology and Life Sciences
Biomedical engineering
Brain
Brain cancer
Brain research
Brain tumors
Cancer therapies
Care and treatment
Cell adhesion & migration
Cell Culture Techniques - methods
Cell Line, Tumor
Chemotherapy
Density
Drug efficacy
Drugs
Engineering
Glioblastoma
Glioblastomas
Glioma
Glioma - metabolism
Glioma - pathology
Growth rate
Humans
Hydrogels
Hydrogels - chemistry
International conferences
Medical prognosis
Medical research
Medicine and Health Sciences
Physical Sciences
Research and Analysis Methods
Sepharose - chemistry
Spheroids
Spheroids, Cellular - metabolism
Spheroids, Cellular - pathology
Testing
Tumors
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Treatment of glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive type of primary brain tumors, is a major medical challenge and the development of new alternatives requires simple yet realistic models for these tumors. In vitro spheroid models offer attractive platforms to mimic the tumor behavior in vivo and have thus, been increasingly applied for assessment of drug efficacy in various tumors. The aim of this study was to produce and characterize size-controlled U251 glioma spheroids towards application in glioma drug evaluation studies. To this end, we fabricated agarose hydrogel microwells with cylindrical shape and diameters of 70-700 μm and applied these wells without any surface modification for glioma spheroid formation. The resultant spheroids were homogeneous in size and shape, exhibited high cell viability (> 90%), and had a similar growth rate to that of natural brain tumors. The final size of spheroids depended on cell seeding density and microwell size. The spheroids' volume increased linearly with the cell seeding density and the rate of this change increased with the well size. Lastly, we tested the therapeutic effect of an anti-cancer drug, Di-2-pyridylketone-4,4-dimethyl-3-thiosemicarbazone (Dp44mT) on the resultant glioma spheroids and demonstrated the applicability of this spheroid model for drug efficacy studies.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0211078