#3d lab model

Drawing Channels

As experimental setups have advanced over time, from 2D cell cultures in dishes to larger 3D structures that mimic the body’s environments, networks of vessels have become essential to get materials to growing cells at the heart of the models. A new study creates this vascular network with a scaffold first drawn with melt electrowriting – a form of microscopic 3D printing – which is submerged in the precursor of a gel. The scaffold swells, and fuses together where elements make contact, to create a predefined network of channels throughout the structure. These vessels (pictured, with a complete layer of functional cells lining the inside of the vessel) can transport essential molecules to cells growing anywhere in the device, helping to both create a viable testing platform for experiments and improve prospects of growing healthy tissues for regenerative medicine.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Video from work by Matthias Ryma and colleagues

University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Advanced Materials, May 2022

Neighbourly Dynamics

Tissue development is sometimes a little like origami – a flat sheet of epithelial cells folding and remodelling into a complex tissue. Researchers have long studied the 2D interactions of these epithelial cells with their neighbours during this elaborate process. Now they investigate their 3D interactions using light-sheet microscopy of growing embryonic mouse lung tissue in dishes, subsequent data analysis called 3D cell segmentation (pictured) and physical theories. They found the epithelial cells (top) had irregular 3D shapes and often changed neighbours, both as they grew and during the cell cycle as their nuclei (bottom) moved up and down. However, the cells still followed established mathematical laws and rules of movement within epithelial layers and throughout the full thickness of the tissue. This reveals that although 3D organisation in epithelia is complex, it still follows simple physical rules. These insights will help better model epithelia in health and disease.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Image by Harold Fernando Gomez and colleagues

D-BSSE, ETH Zurich, Basel, Switzerland

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife, October 2021

Resistance is Futile?

Drug resistance is one of the biggest hurdles in treating cancer. This is especially true for signet ring cell carcinoma (SRCC), a type of stomach cancer, which presents resistance to a variety of drugs from one patient to the next. One solution to this problem is to grow a patient’s tumour cells in the lab and test the effectiveness of different drugs before deciding which to use. However, these lab-grown cells aren’t as complex as real tumours and often don't retain the genetic changes of the original tumour. Researchers now present 3D organoids (pictured using scanning electron microscopy) made from human SRCC (top) and non-SRCC (bottom) tumours. The organoids all maintained the same genetics as the original tumours, as determined by whole exome sequencing. Notably, the SRCC and non-SRCC organoids responded differently to four different cancer drugs, highlighting the usefulness of this model for tailoring drug treatments for patients with SRCC.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Image from work by Guoliang Li and colleagues

Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Cell Death Discovery, January 2022

Fake and Kidney

Organoids are lab-grown models of tissues and organs – they give researchers the chance to poke around in ways that are impossible in the real thing. Yet growing realistic organoids is a challenge. Here tissue engineers build a 3D kidney-oid, by mimicking how the stroma (structural tissue) guides functional tissue, the parenchyma, as it develops. Watching how real kidney stroma forms, the researchers programmed mouse embryonic stem cells to follow a similar path. Combining these with parenchymal cells destined to become different parts of the kidney helps this organoid to bloom with a complex architecture. A digitised image reveals parts of its lab-grown nephron (red, white and blue) together with ureteric buds (green) which, in real kidneys, syphon liquid towards the bladder. These kidney-oids may now be used to study kidney disease or to better understand how this vital organ cleans our blood.

Written by John Ankers

Image from work by Shunsuke Tanigawa and Etsuko Tanaka, and colleagues

Department of Kidney Development, Institute of Molecular Embryology and Genetics, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, February 2022

Small Minded

You might boast of a big brain, but small ones have their uses. ‘Minibrains’ are tiny structures formed of human brain cells, which are used by scientists to study brain function, disease development, and new treatments. They can be used in countless investigations, and can even be grown from individuals’ cells, creating personalised testing grounds for treatments. Despite their comparatively diminutive stature, the minibrains’ internal structure was still hard to discern through the conventional approaches of analysing destructively-obtained slices of material, but a new study has visualised their anatomy in new detail, from the outside. Researchers labelled individual neurons and rendered other areas transparent, so they could see the remarkable complexity within (pictured, with elaborate brain cell projections in green and shorter ones in pink). Observing this 3D morphology will help future studies rapidly assess effects of drugs in many minibrains, hopefully leading to new, tailored treatments for patients.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Video from work by Subashika Govindan and colleagues

Tissue Engineering Laboratory, Haute école du paysage, d’ingénierie et d’architecture de Genève, Haute école spécialisée de Suisse occidentale (HEPIA HES-SO), Genève, Switzerland

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, January 2021