Multicellular Three-dimensional Tumor Spheroid as Potential in vitro Preclinical Model for Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Research - by Prof. Ts. Dr. Cheah Shiau Chuen

 

Abstract:

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is one of the major public health problems in its endemic countries, especially Southern China. Metastasis and treatment resistance are the major causes of mortality in NPC. There is urgent need to develop effective therapeutic agents and biomarkers for early diagnosis through thorough understanding of the underlying pathogenesis in NPC. Although most of the NPC studies were relayed on two-dimensional model, but the tumor microenvironment involving cancer progression and metastasis are not recapitulated, hence the emergence of a more realistic three-dimensional (3D) cell culture model, that allows mimicry of physiological and pharmacological properties of in vivo human solid tumor. In present study, focus on how 3D model recapitulating in vivo TME including heterotypic cell-cell and extracellular matrix cross-talk and also provided comprehensive overview of its advantages, opportunities and applications in metastasis study, as well as its challenges in NPC cancer research. The potential of patient-derived 3D spheroid culture in heterogeneity studies and personalized medicine development was also discussed here. 3D co-culture spheroid is holding a great promise as next generation standard of in vitro pre-clinical model for biomarkers discovery, accelerating drug screening process, and achieving a more precise personalized treatment for cancer patients.