Colorectal cancer derived organotypic spheroids maintain essential tissue characteristics but adapt their metabolism in culture.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Organotypic tumor spheroids, a 3D in vitro model derived from patient tumor material, preserve tissue heterogeneity and retain structural tissue elements, thus replicating the in vivo tumor more closely than commonly used 2D and 3D cell line models. Such structures harbour tumorigenic cells, as revealed by xenograft implantation studies in animal models and maintain the genetic makeup of the original tumor material. The aim of our work was a morphological and proteomic characterization of organotypic spheroids derived from colorectal cancer tissue in order to get insight into their composition and associated biology.

Results

Morphological analysis showed that spheroids were of about 250 μm in size and varied in structure, while the spheroid cells differed in shape

SUBMITTER: Rajcevic U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4114130 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature