3D culture enhances chemoresistance of ALL Jurkat cell line by increasing DDR1 expression

Three dimensional (3D) culture has gradually become a research hotspot in the field of drug screening, stem cell research, and tissue engineering due to its more physiological-like morphology and function. In this study, we compared the differences of cell proliferation, population, protein expression and chemoresistance profiles between two dimensional (2D) and 3D culture of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) Jurkat cell line. Polycaprolactone (PCL) is used for 3D culture owing to its biochemical properties and compatibility. Culturing of ALL Jurkat cell line in collagen type I coated polycaprolactone scaffold for 168 h increased cell proliferation, attachment, as well as the drug resistance to cytarabine (Ara-C) and daunorubicin (DNR) without changing the original CD2(+)CD3(+)CD4(+dim)CD8(−)CD34(−)CD45(+dim) phenotype, compared to uncoated PCL scaffold and tissue culture plate systems. Molecularly, increased chemoresistance is associated with the upregulation of discoidin domain receptor 1 (DDR1) and transcription factor STAT3. Inhibition of DDR1 activity by DDR1-specific inhibitor DDR-IN-1 accelerated cell death in the presence of Ara-C, DNR or their combination. These results demonstrated that 3D culture enhances chemoresistance of ALL Jurkat cell line by increasing DDR1 expression. Importantly, the cell adhesion-mediated drug resistance induced by DDR1 in the scaffold was similar to the clinical situation, indicating the 3D culture of cancer cells recapitulate the in vivo tumor environment and this platform can be used as a promising pre-clinic drug-screen system.