3D Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Microtissues Grown in Calcium Alginate Microbeads
Soon Chuan Wong
Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia.
Chin Fhong Soon *
Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia and Biosensor and Bioengineering Laboratory, MiNT-SRC Research Center, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia.
Kian Sek Tee
Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia.
Wai Yean Leong
Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia.
Mohd Khairul Ahmad
Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia.
Sok Ching Cheong
Cancer Research Malaysia, 2nd Floor, Outpatient Centre, Subang Jaya Medical Centre, No. 1, Jalan SS12/1A, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
3D microtissue models, especially cancer microtissue model, are potentially applicable for new drug testing because 3D microtissue reveals more realistic drug response, characterizes the disease and mimics the tumor in human body. In this paper, we report the integration of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cell line (ORL-48) into 3D microtissue after two weeks of microencapsulation in calcium alginate microbeads that were produced based on the flicking technique. The microtissues contained highly proliferative cells as indicated by Alamar blue assay. The viable microtissues formed were extracted from the calcium alginate shell by means of alginate lyase. As revealed by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), the extracted 3D microtissues were characterized by inhomogeneous microtissue surface but good cell integrity via self-secreted extracellular matrix proteins. DAPI staining showed the proliferative behavior of cells in multilayer structure. These microtissues were able to spread into 2D monolayer after being transferred to grow on petri dishes. The 3D cultured microtissues of ORL-48 could be potentially useful for cancer therapeutic drug assessment in-vitro.
Keywords: 3D cell culture, calcium alginate, microbeads, microtissue, ORL-48, oral squamous cell carcinoma.