WEBINAR

Drug response profiling of primary colorectal tumor models using spheroONE and Pu·MA System EC automated workflow

Presented: Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Learn about a novel automated workflow using the spheroONE and Pu·MA System EC for drug response profiling of patient-derived tumor models. Primary tumoroids are sorted & dispensed into flowchips for drug testing using phenotypic assays. Automated compound incubation and viability staining lead to consistent reproducible high-quality data.

Summary

The use of human-relevant three-dimensional in vitro cell models have gained popularity as they better recapitulated key aspects of human tissues and tumor microenvironments. Methods for generating organoids, spheroids, and tumoroids have progressed to where scientists have the ability to recapitulate most human organs and cancer types ex vivo. These models are being used in many aspects of drug discovery and development, but adoption has been limited due in part to challenges related to sample handling, assay development , and the need for optimized instrumentation. Here, we present a novel automated workflow for drug safety and efficacy studies using patient derived 3D tumor models.

We have combined the use of spheroONE for automated sorting, isolation and dispensing of spheroids and Pu·MA System EC with low attachment flowchips for incubation and automated viability assays and biomarker detection. We used this workflow to analyze viability of colorectal cancer (CRC) tumoroids treated with different oncology drugs and compared their response to cell line (HCT116 spheroids) based assays. First, several thousand of tumoroids were formed in a microwell cavity plate, collected into media and dispensed into Pu·MA System flowchips using the spherONE. The harvested and plated tumoroids were treated with oncology drugs for 48 hours and then stained with viability dyes. The tumoroids were imaged in flowchips using an automated widefield fluorescence microscope and analyzed for number of Live and Dead cells using an AI-assisted image analysis program.

Differences were observed between the primary CRC and HCT116 spheroids. Spheroid viability results were found to be consistent with known response of the compounds in humans. This automated workflow using the spheroONE and Pu·MA System EC for tumoroid dispensing for high throughput drug testing eliminates sample disturbance, manual handling errors and provides consistent reproducible high-quality data. This platform is a valuable tool in a wide range of research areas enabling multiplex disease modeling, drug discovery and personalized medicine.