Head and Neck Cancer Stem Cell-Enriched Spheroid Model for Anticancer Compound Screening

Cancer stem cells (CSCs), a rare cell population in tumors, are resistant to conventional chemotherapy and thus responsible for tumor recurrence. To screen for active compounds targeting CSCs, a good CSC-enriched model compatible with high-throughput screening (HTS) is needed. Here, we describe a new head and neck cancer stem cell-enriched spheroid model (SCESM) suitable for HTS analyses of anti-CSC compounds. We used FaDu cells, round-bottom ultra-low adherent (ULA) microplates, and stem medium. The formed spheroids displayed increased expression of all stem markers tested (qRT-PCR and protein analysis) in comparison to the FaDu cells grown in a standard adherent culture or in a well-known HTS-compatible multi-cellular tumor spheroid model (MCTS). Consistent with increased stemness of the cells in the spheroid, confocal microscopy detected fast proliferating cells only at the outer rim of the SCESM spheroids, with poorly/non-proliferating cells deeper in. To confirm the sensitivity of our model, we used ATRA treatment, which strongly reduced the expression of selected stem markers. Altogether, we developed a CSC-enriched spheroid model with a simple protocol, a microplate format compatible with multimodal detection systems, and a high detection signal, making it suitable for anti-CSC compounds’ HTS.