Samsung Genome Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, 06351, South Korea.
Department of Breast Cancer Center, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, 06351, South Korea.
Sci Rep. 2020 Nov 23;10(1):20343. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-77324-3.
The use of precision medicine for chemotherapy requires the individualization of the therapeutic regimen for each patient. This approach improves treatment efficacy and reduces the probability of administering ineffective drugs. To ensure accurate decision-making in a timely manner, anticancer drug efficacy tests must be performed within a short timeframe using a small number of cancer cells. These requirements can be satisfied via microfluidics-based drug screening platforms, which are composed of complex fluidic channels and closed systems. Owing to their complexity, skilled manipulation is required. In this study, we developed a microfluidic platform, to accurately perform multiple drug efficacy tests using a small number of cells, which can be conducted via simple manipulation. As it is a small, open-chamber system, a minimal number of cells could be loaded through simple pipetting. Furthermore, the extracellular matrix gel inside the chamber provides an in vivo-like environment that enables the localized delivery of the drugs to spontaneously diffuse from the channels underneath the chamber without a pump, thereby efficiently and robustly testing the efficacy and resistance of multiple drugs. We demonstrated that this platform enabled the rapid and facile testing of multiple drugs using a small number of cells (~ 10,000) over a short period of time (~ 2 days). These results provide the possibility of using this powerful platform for selecting therapeutic medication, developing new drugs, and delivering personalized medicine to patients.
精准医学在化疗中的应用需要为每位患者制定个体化的治疗方案。这种方法可以提高治疗效果，并降低使用无效药物的概率。为了及时做出准确的决策，必须在短时间内使用少量癌细胞进行抗癌药物疗效测试。基于微流控的药物筛选平台可以满足这些要求，这些平台由复杂的流体通道和封闭系统组成。由于其复杂性，需要熟练的操作。在这项研究中，我们开发了一种微流控平台，可以通过简单的操作，使用少量细胞准确地进行多次药物疗效测试。由于它是一个小型的开放式腔室系统，因此可以通过简单的移液操作装入少量细胞。此外，腔室内的细胞外基质凝胶提供了类似于体内的环境，允许药物在没有泵的情况下从腔室下方的通道自发扩散，从而高效、稳健地测试多种药物的疗效和耐药性。我们证明，该平台能够在短时间内（约 2 天）使用少量细胞（约 10,000 个）快速简便地测试多种药物。这些结果为使用这种强大的平台选择治疗药物、开发新药和为患者提供个性化医疗提供了可能性。
