Three-dimensional cell culture systems in drug development studies

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) cell culture methods have been widely used in many research areas including the investigation of disease pathology such as carcinogenesis mechanisms, tissue engineering, and drug discovery. It has been known that 3D cell culture models have many advantages in comparison to both the monolayer two-dimensional (2D) cell culture methods in terms of better representing the in vivo cellular conditions and animal models due to their lower cost and higher applicability. 3D cell culture systems consist of validated models such as spheroids and organoids generated w/w.o. extracellular matrix components. Applications of these models can be seen in cancer research, highthroughput drug screening, and prediction of drug response on patient-derived 3D cellular models. Establishing novel 3D systems also has great potential to support the development of biotechnological therapeutics such as cellular therapies or therapeutic efficacy tests of various candidates on 3D models. This review article aims to briefly describe the recent literature on types, advantages, limitations, and applications of 3D cell culture models in various stages of drug development studies such as disease models, and drug response tests.

Keywords

• Three-dimensional cell culture
• 3D disease models
• 3D drug testing
• spheroid
• organoid

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