Lung carcinoma spheroids embedded in a microfluidic platform

Three-dimensional (3D) spheroid cell cultures are excellent models used in cancer biology research and drug screening. The objective of this study was to develop a lung carcinoma spheroid based microfluidic platform with perfusion function to mimic lung cancer pathology and investigate the effect of a potential drug molecule, panaxatriol. Spheroids were successfully formed on agar microtissue molds at the end of 10 days, reaching an average diameter of about 317.18 ± 4.05 μm and subsequently transferred to 3D dynamic microfluidic system with perfusion function. While the size of the 3D spheroids embedded in the Matrigel matrix in the platform had gradually increased both in the static and dynamic control groups, the size of the spheroids were reduced and fragmented in the drug treated groups. Cell viability results showed that panaxatriol exhibited higher cytotoxic effect on cancer cells than healthy cells and the IC₅₀ value was determined as 61.55 µM. Furthermore, panaxatriol has been more effective on single cells around the spheroid structure, whereas less in 3D spheroid tissues with a compact structure in static conditions compared to dynamic systems, where a flow rate of 2 µL/min leading to a shear stress of 0.002 dyne/cm² was applied. Application of such dynamic systems will contribute to advancing basic research and increasing the predictive accuracy of potential drug molecules, which may accelerate the translation of novel therapeutics to the clinic, possibly decreasing the use of animal models.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10616-021-00470-7.