High-Throughput Chemotherapeutic Drug Screening System for Gastric Cancer (Cure-GA)

Three dimensional (3D) cell cultures can be effectively used for drug discovery and development but there are still challenges in their general application to high-throughput screening. In this study, we developed a novel high-throughput chemotherapeutic 3D drug screening system for gastric cancer, named 'Cure-GA', to discover clinically applicable anticancer drugs and predict therapeutic responses. Primary cancer cells were isolated from 143 fresh surgical specimens by enzymatic treatment. Cell-Matrigel mixtures were automatically printed onto the micropillar surface then stabilized in an optimal culture medium for 3 days to form tumoroids. These tumoroids were exposed in the drug-containing media for 7 days. Cell viability was measured by fluorescence imaging and adenosine triphosphate assays. On average, 0.31 ± 0.23 g of fresh tumor tissue yielded 4.05×10 ± 4.38×10 viable cells per sample. Drug response results were successfully acquired from 103 gastric cancer tissues (success rate = 72%) within 13 ± 2 days, averaging 6.4 ± 2.7 results per sample. Pearson correlation analysis showed viable cell numbers significantly impacted drug data acquisition (p