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 xenografts (PDXs) and patient-derived organoids (PDOs) have been shown to model clinical response to cancer therapy. However, it remains challenging to use these models to guide timely clinical decisions for cancer patients. Here, we used droplet emulsion microfluidics with temperature control and dead-volume minimization to rapidly generate thousands of micro-organospheres (MOSs) from low-volume patient tissues, which serve as an ideal patient-derived model for clinical precision oncology. A clinical study of recently diagnosed metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) patients using an MOS-based precision oncology pipeline reliably assessed tumor drug response within 14 days, a timeline suitable for guiding treatment decisions in the clinic. Furthermore, MOSs capture original stromal cells and allow T cell penetration, providing a clinical assay for testing immuno-oncology (IO) therapies such as PD-1 blockade, bispecific antibodies, and T cell therapies on patient tumors.