Document Type

Editorial

Publication Date

2019

DOI

10.18632/oncotarget.27099

Publication Title

Oncotarget

Volume

10

Issue

46

Pages

4724-4726

Abstract

(First paragraph) The development of three-dimensional culture scaffolds represents a revolutionary step forward for in vitro culture systems. Various synthetic and naturally occurring substrates have been developed that support 3D growth of cells. In most fields, including mammary gland biology and tumorigenesis, the two most common substrates used are the basement membrane rich extracellur matrix (ECM) isolated from EngelbrethHolm-Swarm (EHS) mouse sarcomas (e.g. Matrigel) and collagen extracted from rat-tails. The processes of 3D culture in these two substrates has remained unchanged for nearly half a century: cells are either mixed with unpolymerized matrix to disperse them randomly throughout the substrate upon polymerization or overlaid randomly on top of a preformed hydrogel. While effective in generating organoid/tumoroid structures, the random nature of these processes has many drawbacks that limit the reproducibility and tunability of the experimental design. Furthermore, random cellular distributions limit the utility of these substrates for studying interactions within the cellular microenvironment, which have been shown to be critical for the control of stem and cancer cell function [1].

Comments

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

ORCID

0000-0003-3329-9478 (Bruno), 0000-0003-2989-1292 (Reid), 0000-0002-0871-6789 (Sachs)

Original Publication Citation

Bruno, R. D., Reid, J., & Sachs, P. C. (2019). The revolution will be open-source: how 3D bioprinting can change 3D cell culture. Oncotarget, 10(46), 4724-4726. doi:10.18632/oncotarget.27099

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