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Author Spotlight: In Vitro Hydrogel Model for Glioblastoma Microenvironment Study
Published on: September 22, 2023
Size and shape control of microgel-encapsulating tumor spheroid via a user-friendly solenoid valve-based sorter and
Jiayu Sun1, Wenxiu Li1, Yanjun Lu2
1Department of Precision Diagnostic and Therapeutic Technology, City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Futian Research Institute, Shenzhen, 518057, China; Department of Biomedical Sciences, and Tung Biomedical Sciences Centre, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Abstract:
The precision of previous cancer research based on tumor spheroids, especially the microgel-encapsulating tumor spheroids, was limited by the high heterogeneity in the tumor spheroid size and shape. Here, we reported a user-friendly solenoid valve-based sorter to reduce this heterogeneity. The artificial intelligence algorithm was employed to detect and segmentate the tumor spheroids in real-time for the size and shape calculation. A simple off-chip solenoid valve-based sorting actuation module was proposed to sort out target tumor spheroids with the desired size and shape. Utilizing the developed sorter, we successfully uncovered the drug response variations on cisplatin of lung tumor spheroids in the same population but with different sizes and shapes. Moreover, with this sorter, the precision of drug testing on the spheroid population level was improved to a level comparable to the precise but complex single spheroid analysis. The developed sorter also exhibits significant potential for organoid morphology and sorting for precision medicine research.
