Multicellular tumor spheroids are an important model system to investigate the response of tumor cells to radio- and chemotherapy. They share more properties with the original tumor than cells cultured as 2D monolayers do, which helps distinguish the intrinsic properties of monolayer cells from those induced during cell aggregation in 3D spheroids. The paper investigates some metabolic aspects ...

BACKGROUND Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a favored cell source for regenerative medicine because of their multilinage potential. However, the conventional monolayer technique used to culture MSCs, inadequately overcomes their low differentiation capacity. Culture of MSCs in multicellular spheroids, more accurately mimics the in-vivo microenvironment; thus, resolving this problem. In this st...

The effects of the two antitumor drugs vinblastine and 5fluorouracil on the growth of the human tumor cell lines U-118 MG (glioma) and HTh-7 (thyroid cancer) were analyzed. The cells were cultured both as monolayers and as multicellular spheroids and exposed to vinblastine (0.1,1.0, or 10 t¿g/m\) or 5-fluorouracil (10, 100, or 1000 u.g/m\) for 15 min, 2 hr, or 24 hr. The drugs induced growth d...

The immunolocalization of type I, III and IV collagens and fibronectin in two rat glioma cell lines in vitro (BT4C and BT4Cn) is described. In addition, antibodies against denatured type I and III collagens were used to study breakdown products of native type I and III collagens. For the BT4C cells, the extracellular matrix expression in monolayer cultures and in multicellular tumor spheroids w...

The effects of the two antitumor drugs vinblastine and 5-fluorouracil on the growth of the human tumor cell lines U-118 MG (glioma) and HTh-7 (thyroid cancer) were analyzed. The cells were cultured both as monolayers and as multicellular spheroids and exposed to vinblastine (0.1, 1.0, or 10 micrograms/ml) or 5-fluorouracil (10, 100, or 1000 micrograms/ml) for 15 min, 2 hr, or 24 hr. The drugs i...

We present a flexible and highly reproducible method using three-dimensional (3D) multicellular tumor spheroids to quantify chemotherapeutic and nanoparticle penetration properties in vitro. We generated HeLa cell-derived spheroids using the liquid overlay method. To properly characterize HeLa spheroids, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and multiphoton microscopy ...