ABSTRACT
In vitro tissue models hold great promise for modeling diseases and drug responses. Here, we used emulsion microfluidics to form micro-organospheres (MOSs), which are droplet-encapsulated miniature three-dimensional (3D) tissue models that can be established rapidly from patient tissues or cells. MOSs retain key biological features and responses to chemo-, targeted, and radiation therapies compared with organoids. The small size and large surface-to-volume ratio of MOSs enable various applications including quantitative assessment of nutrient dependence, pathogen-host interaction for anti-viral drug screening, and a rapid potency assay for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T therapy. An automated MOS imaging pipeline combined with machine learning overcomes plating variation, distinguishes tumorspheres from stroma, differentiates cytostatic versus cytotoxic drug effects, and captures resistant clones and heterogeneity in drug response. This pipeline is capable of robust assessments of drug response at individual-tumorsphere resolution and provides a rapid and high-throughput therapeutic profiling platform for precision medicine.
Subject(s)
Antineoplastic Agents , Organoids , Antineoplastic Agents/pharmacology , Drug Evaluation, Preclinical/methods , Humans , Microfluidics , Precision MedicineABSTRACT
Patient-derived organoid (PDO) models allow for long-term expansion and maintenance of primary epithelial cells grown in three dimensions and a near-native state. When derived from resected or biopsied tumor tissue, organoids closely recapitulate in vivo tumor morphology and can be used to study therapy response in vitro. Biobanks of tumor organoids reflect the vast variety of clinical tumors and patients and therefore hold great promise for preclinical and clinical applications. This paper presents a method for medium-throughput drug screening using head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and colorectal adenocarcinoma organoids. This approach can easily be adopted for use with any tissue-derived organoid model, both normal and diseased. Methods are described for in vitro exposure of organoids to chemo- and radiotherapy (either as single-treatment modality or in combination). Cell survival after 5 days of drug exposure is assessed by measuring adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels. Drug sensitivity is measured by the half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50), area under the curve (AUC), and growth rate (GR) metrics. These parameters can provide insight into whether an organoid culture is deemed sensitive or resistant to a particular treatment.