Publication

Spheroids formation on non‐adhesive surfaces by Liquid Overlay Technique: considerations and practical approaches

View document

Bibliographic Details
Summary:Scalable and reproducible production of 3D cellular spheroids is highly demanded, by pharmaceutical companies, for drug screening purposes during the pre‐clinical evaluation phase. These 3D cellular constructs, unlike the monolayer culture of cells, can mimic different features of human tissues, including cellular organization, cell–cell and cell‐extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions. Up to now, different techniques (scaffold‐based and ‐free) have been used for spheroids formation, being the Liquid Overlay Technique (LOT) one of the most explored methodologies, due to its low cost and easy handling. Additionally, during the last few decades, this technique has been widely investigated in order to enhance its potential for being applied in high‐throughput analysis. Herein, an overview of the LOT advances, practical approaches, and troubleshooting is provided for those researchers that intend to produce spheroids using LOT, for drug screening purposes. Moreover, the advantages of the LOT over the other scaffold‐free techniques used for the spheroids formation are also addressed.
Main Authors:Costa, Elisabete C.
Other Authors:Diogo, Duarte Miguel de Melo; Moreira, André; Carvalho, Marco António Paulo de; Correia, Ilídio Joaquim Sobreira
Subject:3D cell culture High-throughput screening Liquid overlay technique Scaffold-free techniques Tumor spheroids
Year:2018
Country:Portugal
Document type:article
Access type:restricted access
Associated institution:Universidade da Beira Interior
Language:English
Origin:uBibliorum
Description
Summary:Scalable and reproducible production of 3D cellular spheroids is highly demanded, by pharmaceutical companies, for drug screening purposes during the pre‐clinical evaluation phase. These 3D cellular constructs, unlike the monolayer culture of cells, can mimic different features of human tissues, including cellular organization, cell–cell and cell‐extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions. Up to now, different techniques (scaffold‐based and ‐free) have been used for spheroids formation, being the Liquid Overlay Technique (LOT) one of the most explored methodologies, due to its low cost and easy handling. Additionally, during the last few decades, this technique has been widely investigated in order to enhance its potential for being applied in high‐throughput analysis. Herein, an overview of the LOT advances, practical approaches, and troubleshooting is provided for those researchers that intend to produce spheroids using LOT, for drug screening purposes. Moreover, the advantages of the LOT over the other scaffold‐free techniques used for the spheroids formation are also addressed.

Funded activities

Loading funded projects...