The present protocol describes a technique to produce tissue spheroids on a large scale cost-effectively using a 3D printed stamp-like device.
Advances in 3D cell culture have developed more physiologically relevant in vitro models, such as tissue spheroids. Cells cultivated as spheroids have more realistic biological responses that resemble the in vivo environment. Due to their advantages, tissue spheroids represent an emerging trend toward superior, more reliable, and more predictive study models with a broad range of biotechnological applicability. However, reproducible platforms that can achieve large-scale production of tissue spheroids have become an unmet need in fully exploring and boosting their potential. Herein, the large-scale production of homogeneous tissue spheroids is reported using a low-cost and time-effective methodology. A 3D printed stamp-like device is developed to generate up to 4,716 spheroids per 6-well plate. The device is fabricated by the stereolithography method using a photocurable resin. The final device is composed of cylindrical micropins, with a height of 1.3 mm and a width of 650 µm. This approach allows the fast generation of homogeneous spheroids and co-cultured spheroids with uniform shape and size and >95% cell viability. Moreover, the stamp-like device is tunable for different sizes of well plates and Petri dishes. It is easily sterilized and can be reused for long periods. The efficient large-scale production of homogeneous tissue spheroids is essential to leverage their translation for multiple areas of industry, such as tissue engineering, drug development, disease modeling, and on-demand personalized medicine.
Tissue spheroids are 3D micro-tissues formed by cell suspensions that undergo self-assembly without external forces1. These spheroids have been widely used in biofabrication protocols due to their resemblance with key features of the human physiological system2,3. Tissue spheroids provide more similar metabolism, cytoskeleton dynamics, cell viability, and metabolic and secretion activity than traditional monolayer cell culture1. Due to their fusion capability, they can also be used as building blocks (e.g., bioprinting protocols) to form complex tissue-engineered constructs with enhanced biological relevance4,5.
Due to their biological relevance, tissue spheroids have been used as a biotechnological tool for protocols ranging across tissue engineering, drug development, disease modeling, and nanotoxicological assessment, reducing time, space costs, and animal testing3,6,7,8. Nonetheless, to fully explore and leverage the potential of tissue spheroids, reliable and reproducible methods aiming at their large-scale production are highly necessary, and these remain an ongoing challenge.
Several methodologies produce spheroids, such as hanging drop, coated u-shaped bottom wells, microfluidics, and using a polymeric matrix9,10. Although these methodologies paved the way within the spheroid production market, they are still complex, time-consuming, labor-intensive, or expensive10.
The present protocol reports the large-scale production of homogeneous tissue spheroids using a low-cost and time-effective methodology. We have developed a 3D printed stamp-like device to generate up to 4,716 spheroids per 6-well plate. Moreover, the stamp-like device can be tailored to produce more spheroids per well, suitable for different cell culture plates. It is easily sterilizable and can be reused for long periods. The efficient large-scale production of homogeneous tissue spheroids is essential to translate their use to the clinics, contributing to multiple areas of industry such as tissue engineering, drug development, disease modeling, and on-demand personalized medicine.
The present protocol describes a simple, fast, and inexpensive method for the large-scale production of tissue spheroids. A stamp-like 3D printed device was used as a master mold, which generated up to 4,716 spheroids per 6-well plate. It has been shown that cells cultivated as spheroids have more realistic biological responses that closely resemble the in vivo environment1. Due to their advantages, tissue spheroids represent an emerging trend toward superior, more reliable, and more pred…
The authors have nothing to disclose.
This work was supported by the Foundation for Research Support of the State of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ, Brazil), the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES, Brazil), and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Brazil). We thank Bioedtech for providing the stamp-like devices used in this study and Professor Bartira Bergmann from the Immunopharmacology Laboratory for the use of their cell culture facilities.
6 well plate | Merck | CLS3516 | |
Agarose | Promega | V3121 | |
Biodevice | Bioedtech | ||
Biological Safety Cabinet | ThermoFisher | 51029701 | |
Centrifugue | ThermoFisher | 75004031 | |
Corning 50 mL centrifuge tubes | Merck | CLS430829-500EA | |
Corning cell culture flasks surface area 75 cm2 | Merck | CLS430641 | |
Draft Resin | FormLabs | FLDRBL01 | |
Dulbecco′s Modified Eagle′s Medium – low glucose | Merck | D6046 | |
Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) | ThermoFisher | 16000044 | |
Form 2 | FormLabs | ||
Incubator | ThermoFisher | 51033782 | |
L929 cell lines | Stablished in the lab | ||
Penicillin and Streptomycin (PS) | ThermoFisher | 15140122 | |
Phosphate-Buffered Saline (PBS) | Merck | 806552 | |
Trypsin with EDTA | Merck | T3924 |
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