Spheroids Formation on Non-Adhesive Surfaces by Liquid Overlay Technique: Considerations and Practical Approaches

Abstract

Scalable and reproducible production of 3D cellular spheroids is highly demanded, by pharmaceutical companies, for drug screening purposes during the pre-clinical evaluation phase. These 3D cellular constructs, unlike the monolayer culture of cells, can mimic different features of human tissues, including cellular organization, cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions. Up to now, different techniques (scaffold-based and -free) have been used for spheroids formation, being the Liquid Overlay Technique (LOT) one of the most explored methodologies, due to its low cost and easy handling. Additionally, during the last few decades, this technique has been widely investigated in order to enhance its potential for being applied in high-throughput analysis. Herein, an overview of the LOT advances, practical approaches, and troubleshooting is provided for those researchers that intend to produce spheroids using LOT, for drug screening purposes. Moreover, the advantages of the LOT over the other scaffold-free techniques used for the spheroids formation are also addressed. Highlights • 2D cell culture drawbacks are summarized; • spheroids mimic the features of human tissues; • scaffold-based and scaffold-free technologies for spheroids production are discussed; • advantages of LOT over other scaffold-free techniques are highlighted; • LOT advances, practical approaches and troubleshooting are underlined.

Keywords: 3D cell culture; high-throughput screening; liquid overlay technique; scaffold-free techniques; tumor spheroids.