3D Tumer Cell System for in Vitro Screening of Chemotherapeutic Drugs

Compared with 2D plate,3D tumor cell system is more like tumor tissue,for the 3D scaffold where cells grow can imitate the ECM in organisms,so that it could be used for evaluating anti-tumor efficacy of chemotherapeutic drugs with higher accuracy. There have been different ways to form a 3D scaffold,and electrospinning is the one with great potential. Although studies have shown that when exposed to drugs,greater amount of drugs are needed to kill the cells cultured on 3D scaffold,few studies have ever focused on the sensitive properties of 3D cell systems to drug delivery systems. As drug delivery system is going to be widely used in the future tumor treatment,in order to establish a drug delivery test model to predict the influence of drugs to tumor growth,a 3D cell culture scaffold composed of PCL and gelatin with high porosity,cell affinity and reasonable mechanical properties was fabricated through electrospinning method. One of the compositions PCL ensures the mechanical strength to avoid collapse and gelatin is a well known material with good biocompatibility. U87 was seeded on this scaffold,and the proliferation was monitored over 14 days with SEM and CLSM. It was found that U87 cells can not only adhere to the surface of the scaffold,but also migrate into the interior of the scaffold,forming a 3D cell system. When exposed to free DOX the electrospun scaffold was found to have lower drug sensitivity compared with the 2D cell culture plate. Further investigation of using Doxloaded PEG-b-PCL micelles as the delivery system demonstrated the same result.