Until now, researchers have mostly used 2D monolayers of glioma lines to study the tumors. These are limited, however, as these models do not allow the researchers to study the 3D environment of the tumor or study other factors such as cell-cell or cell-matrix interactions, spatial-temporal signaling or metabolic gradients. Therefore, most anti-glioma drugs that have been effective in vitro have performed poorly in clinical trials.
“Our work shows that we can use bioprinting technology to build 3D glioma models. This is just beginning of our studies on the glioma microenvironment,” said team member Xingliang Dai.
The researchers are now working to improve their current system as well as to optimize the inks used for bioprinting. They also need to improve the tumor model so that it more accurately mimics real glioma tumors.
“We have made much progress since the publication of the Biofabrication paper – including the fact that we observed differently expressed transcriptase profiles of the 3D bioprinted glioma stem cells compared to 2D-cultured ones,” said Xu.
“We are also happy to say that we have also received funding support from the National Natural Science Foundation, the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program), and the Suzhou Science and Technology Project.”
The researchers have also begun investigating the interactions between glioma stem cells and bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, which can be done by fusing the two types of cells together during the bioprinting process.
“By applying the technology to glioma research, we have succeeded in shedding more light on glioma stem-cell behaviour, the glioma microenvironment, tumour-stromae interactions and glioma chemosensitivity,” said Xu.
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[Source: PhysicsWorld]