Study on drug screening multicellular model for colorectal cancer constructed by three-dimensional bioprinting technology

The existing in vitro models for antitumor drug screening have significant limitations. Many compounds that inhibit two-dimensional (2D) cultured cells do not exhibit the same pharmacological effects in vivo, thereby wasting human and material resources and time during drug development. Therefore, it is crucial to develop new models. Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting technology has greater advantages in constructing human tissues than sandwich culture and organoid construction. We used 3D bioprinting technology to construct a 3D multicellular model of SW480 cells, tumor-associated macrophages, and endothelial cells. The biological activities of the model were evaluated by immunofluorescence, hematoxylin and eosin staining of frozen pathological sections, and transcriptome sequencing. Compared with 3D bioprinted single-cell model (3D printing-S), 3D bioprinted multicellular models (3D printing-M) showed significantly improved expression of tumor-related genes, including hub genes IL1B, FCGR2A, FCGR3A, CYBB, SPI1, CCL2, ITGAM, and ITGB2. Antitumor drug screening experiment showed that the IC(50) values of 5-FU, oxaliplatin, and irinotecan in 3D printing-S group/2D culture group were 31.13 μM/12.79 μM, 26.79 μM/0.80 μM, and 16.73 μM/10.45 μM, respectively. Compared with the 3D printing-S group, 3D printing-M group was significantly more resistant to chemotherapy.