Screening for compounds that induce apoptosis of cancer cells grown as multicellular spheroids

Screening and initial characterization of anticancer drugs are typically performed using monolayer cultures of tumor cells. It is well established that such monolayer cultures do not represent the characteristics of 3-dimensional solid tumors. The multicellular tumor spheroid model is of intermediate complexity between in vivo tumors and in vitro monolayer cultures and would be more suitable for drug screening. The authors describe a procedure in which multicellular spheroids are used to screen for compounds that induce tumor cell apoptosis. Multicellular spheroids were generated in 96-well plates, and apoptosis was determined using the M30-Apoptosense enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method. A Z' factor of approximately 0.5 was observed for HCT116 colon carcinoma spheroids using staurosporine to induce apoptosis. This procedure is attractive for secondary screening of hits from larger cell-based screens.