Over the past few years, establishment and adaptation of cell-based assays for drug development and testing has become an important topic in high-throughput screening (HTS). Most new assays are designed to rapidly detect specific cellular effects reflecting action at various targets. However, although more complex than cell-free biochemical test systems, HTS assays using monolayer or suspension cultures still reflect a highly artificial cellular environment and may thus have limited predictive value for the clinical efficacy of a compound. Today's strategies for drug discovery and development, be they hypothesis free or mechanism based, require facile, HTS-amenable test systems that mimic the human tissue environment with increasing accuracy in order to optimize preclinical and preanimal selection of the most active molecules from a large pool of potential effectors, for example, against solid tumors. Indeed, it is recognized that 3-dimensional cell culture systems better reflect the in vivo behavior of most cell types. However, these 3-D test systems have not yet been incorporated into mainstream drug development operations. This article addresses the relevance and potential of 3-D in vitro systems for drug development, with a focus on screening for novel antitumor drugs. Examples of 3-D cell models used in cancer research are given, and the advantages and limitations of these systems of intermediate complexity are discussed in comparison with both 2-D culture and in vivo models. The most commonly used 3-D cell culture systems, multicellular spheroids, are emphasized due to their advantages and potential for rapid development as HTS systems. Thus, multicellular tumor spheroids are an ideal basis for the next step in creating HTS assays, which are predictive of in vivo antitumor efficacy. (Journal of Biomolecular Screening 2004:273-285)
We have studied the optical properties of mammalian cell suspensions to provide a mechanistic basis for interpreting the optical properties of tissues in vivo. Measurements of the wavelength dependence of the reduced scattering coefficient and measurements of the phase function demonstrated that there is a distribution of scatterer sizes. The volumes of the scatterers are equivalent to those of spheres with diameters in the range between ~0.4 and 2.0 mum. Measurements of isolated organelles indicate that mitochondria and other similarly sized organelles are responsible for scattering at large angles, whereas nuclei are responsible for small-angle scattering. Therefore optical diagnostics are expected to be sensitive to organelle morphology but not directly to the size and shape of the cells.
The desire to understand tumor complexity has given rise to mathematical models to describe the tumor microenvironment. We present a new mathematical model for avascular tumor growth and development that spans three distinct scales. At the cellular level, a lattice Monte Carlo model describes cellular dynamics (proliferation, adhesion, and viability). At the subcellular level, a Boolean network regulates the expression of proteins that control the cell cycle. At the extracellular level, reaction-diffusion equations describe the chemical dynamics (nutrient, waste, growth promoter, and inhibitor concentrations). Data from experiments with multicellular spheroids were used to determine the parameters of the simulations. Starting with a single tumor cell, this model produces an avascular tumor that quantitatively mimics experimental measurements in multicellular spheroids. Based on the simulations, we predict: 1), the microenvironmental conditions required for tumor cell survival; and 2), growth promoters and inhibitors have diffusion coefficients in the range between 10(-6) and 10(-7) cm2/h, corresponding to molecules of size 80-90 kDa. Using the same parameters, the model also accurately predicts spheroid growth curves under different external nutrient supply conditions.
Raman spectra of cells and nuclei from cultures in the plateau (nonproliferating) and exponential (proliferating) phases of growth were measured and show that Raman spectroscopy can monitor changes due to cell proliferation. A simple fitting routine was developed using a basis set (lipid, protein, DNA, RNA) to estimate the relative amounts of biochemical components in cells and nuclei. Using relative amounts and ratios of biochemical components, reproducible differences can be detected and quantified that are not readily apparent by visual analysis of vibrational bands in the spectra. These differences, due to cell proliferation, can be assigned to specific biochemical changes. They include a decrease in the relative lipid and increases in the relative protein and RNA for both nontumorigenic exponential cells and nuclei, and an increase in the relative RNA for tumorigenic exponential cells. The lipid/RNA ratio decreases for nontumorigenic exponential cells and nuclei and tumorigenic exponential cells. The protein/lipid ratio increases for both tumorigenic and nontumorigenic exponential cells and nuclei. Finally, the lipid/DNA ratio decreases for tumorigenic exponential nuclei. This knowledge will be important for Raman detection of rapidly dividing populations of cancer cells in vivo.
The geometric average of two spin-echo images obtained with opposite polarity diffusion gradients yields cross-term-free images that can be directly compared for diffusion anisotropy. This approach is demonstrated here for free water isotropic diffusion and anisotropic diffusion of water in the phloem system of celery (Apium graveolens).
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