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  3. Double emulsion-pretreated microwell culture for the in vitro production of multicellular spheroids and their in situ analysis

Double emulsion-pretreated microwell culture for the in vitro production of multicellular spheroids and their in situ analysis

  • Microsyst Nanoeng. 2021 May 24:7:38. doi: 10.1038/s41378-021-00267-w.
Fuyang Qu 1,  Shirui Zhao 1,  Guangyao Cheng 1,  Habibur Rahman 1,  Qinru Xiao 1,  Renee Wan Yi Chan 2 3 4 5,  Yi-Ping Ho 1 6 7 8
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China.
  • 2 CUHK-UMCU Joint Research Laboratory of Respiratory Virus and Immunobiology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China.
  • 3 Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China.
  • 4 Laboratory for Paediatric Respiratory Research, Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
  • 5 Hong Kong Hub of Paediatric Excellence, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
  • 6 Hong Kong Branch of CAS Center for Excellence in Animal Evolution and Genetics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China.
  • 7 The Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Regeneration Medicine, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China.
  • 8 Centre for Novel Biomaterials, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China.
PMID: 34567752 DOI: 10.1038/s41378-021-00267-w
Abstract

Multicellular spheroids have served as a promising preclinical model for drug efficacy testing and disease modeling. Many microfluidic technologies, including those based on water-oil-water double emulsions, have been introduced for the production of spheroids. However, sustained culture and the in situ characterization of the generated spheroids are currently unavailable for the double emulsion-based spheroid model. This study presents a streamlined workflow, termed the double emulsion-pretreated microwell culture (DEPMiC), incorporating the features of (1) effective initiation of uniform-sized multicellular spheroids by the pretreatment of double emulsions produced by microfluidics without the requirement of biomaterial scaffolds; (2) sustained maintenance and culture of the produced spheroids with facile removal of the oil confinement; and (3) in situ characterization of individual spheroids localized in microwells by a built-in analytical station. Characterized by microscopic observations and Raman spectroscopy, the DEPMiC cultivated spheroids accumulated elevated lipid ordering on the apical membrane, similar to that observed in their Matrigel counterparts. Made possible by the proposed technological advancement, this study subsequently examined the drug responses of these in vitro-generated multicellular spheroids. The developed DEPMiC platform is expected to generate health benefits in personalized Cancer treatment by offering a pre-animal tool to dissect heterogeneity from individual tumor spheroids.

Keywords

Microfluidics; Nanobiotechnology; Nanoscience and technology.

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