Microfluidics in Malignant Glioma Research and Precision Medicine

Abstract

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is an aggressive form of brain cancer that has no effective treatments and a prognosis of only 12–15 months. Microfluidic technologies deliver microscale control of fluids and cells, and have aided cancer therapy as point-of-care devices for the diagnosis of breast and prostate cancers. However, a few microfluidic devices are developed to study malignant glioma. The ability of these platforms to accurately replicate the complex microenvironmental and extracellular conditions prevailing in the brain and facilitate the measurement of biological phenomena with high resolution and in a high-throughput manner could prove useful for studying glioma progression. These attributes, coupled with their relatively simple fabrication process, make them attractive for use as point-of-care diagnostic devices for detection and treatment of GBM. Here, the current issues that plague GBM research and treatment, as well as the current state of the art in glioma detection and therapy, are reviewed. Finally, opportunities are identified for implementing microfluidic technologies into research and diagnostics to facilitate the rapid detection and better therapeutic targeting of GBM.

Mathematical formulation and parametric analysis of in vitro cell models in microfluidic devices: application to different stages of glioblastoma evolution

“…Many 3D culture models are now being developed, such as spheroids, organoids, different scaffold-based models, etc., which better mimic cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix interactions 100 , 101 . With the development of microfluidics for biological applications, apart from including different components of the tumour microenvironment, we are also able to control the physico-chemical conditions, so microfluidic models are considered the most biomimetical in vitro models nowadays 102 , 103 . Special devices have been developed for GBM research to study the behaviour of GBM cells and therapy response within a biomimetic and controlled microenvironment.…”

Challenges and Perspectives of Standard Therapy and Drug Development in High-Grade Gliomas

“…Precision medicine is a type of customized treatment that can be used to treat patients with HGG according to their specific molecular profile [ 365 , 366 ]. One example is using the novel 3D brain cancer chip, which utilizes GBM cells to form 3D cancer tissues for drug screening, therapy resistance, and tumor cell motility [ 367 , 368 , 369 , 370 ].…”

Innovations in 3D Tissue Models of Human Brain Physiology and Diseases

“…Microfluidic technologies have been used in brain cancer research for diagnostic applications such as circulating tumor cell isolation and biomarker detection, as well as to create in vitro models to study drug efficacy and tumor progression. [ 242 ] As with models of neurodevelopment or neurodegeneration, brain cancer‐on‐a‐chip models rely on precise control of cellular microenvironment and capability for real‐time outputs (e.g., high‐resolution imaging, biochemical detection) to understand disease pathology. To date, researchers have focused on controlling variations in ECM composition and mechanics, vascular integration, and cellular interactions as a means of studying glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) tumor progression.…”