Journal of Analytical & Bioanalytical Techniques
Open Access

Research Article

Three-Dimensional (3D) Cell Cultures in Cell-based Assays for in-vitro Evaluation of Anticancer Drugs

Audrey F Adcock, Goral Trivedi, Rasheena Edmondson, Courtney Spearman and Liju Yang^*

Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprises (BRITE), North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC 27707, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Liju Yang
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprises (BRITE)
North Carolina Central University
Durham, NC 27707, USA
Tel: 919-530-6704
Fax: 919-530-6600
E-mail: lyang@nccu.edu

Received date: April 10, 2015; Accepted date: May 23, 2015; Published date: May 29, 2015

Citation: Adcock AF, Trivedi G, Edmondson R, Spearman C, Yang L (2015) Three- Dimensional (3D) Cell Cultures in Cell-based Assays for in-vitro Evaluation of Anticancer Drugs. J Anal Bioanal Tech 6:247. doi: 10.4172/2155-9872.1000249

Copyright: © 2015 Adcock AF, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This study systematically investigated the cell proliferation rates, spheroid structures, cellular responses to different anti-cancer drugs, the expression of drug action-related proteins, and the possible correlations among these properties of 3D spheroids on Matrigel in comparison to 2D monolayer cells, using two cancer cell lines-the prostate cancer cell line, DU145, and the oral cancer cell line, CAL27. Compared to the traditional 2D-cultured cells, 3D-cultured CAL27 cells had enhanced proliferation by approximately 50-70% at various seeding cell densities, whereas 3D-cultured DU145 cells showed reduced proliferation at all tested seeding cell densities by 20-40%. In drug tests, the sensitivity of 3D-cultured DU145 cells relative to 2D-cultured cells showed an obvious drug action mechanism dependency in response to three anticancer drugs, Rapamycin, Docetaxel, and Camptothecin, whereas 3D-cultured CAL27 cells responded more sensitively than 2D-cultured cells to all three tested drugs, Docetaxel, Bleomycin, and Erlotinib, indicating the relative proliferation rate between 3D and 2D cultured cells may be a dominating factor in this case and mitigated the factor of drug action mechanism. The elevated expression of EGFR in 3D-cultured CAL27 was correlated with its more sensitive response to Erlotinib (acting through binding to EGRF) compared to 2D-cultured cells; Similarly, the expression of βIII tubulin in 3D-cultured DU145 cells was found to be increased and correlated with their higher resistance to Doxetaxel compared to 2D-cultured cells.

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