A team of researchers, led by scientists from Princeton University, have created a microfluidic cell culture device that allows real-time observation of the development of drug resistance in cancer. This device can be fitted onto a standard epifluorescence microscope without the need for a full incubating bath enclosure, which could potentially make it a convenient tool for drug development and screening. The results were reported today in the journal Convergent Science Physical Oncology.
The emergence of drug resistance is one of the major issues in effectively treating cancer today. Drug resistance follows a pattern of natural selection, where cancer cells adapt to hostile conditions such as those created by chemotherapy. This can make it a hard to predict problem as drugs that work perfectly for in-vitro models may stop working in a complex ecosystem over time.
The new cell culture device reproducibly mimics the complex microenvironments in which cancer cells develop to create an ‘evolution accelerator’ in which to observe the emergence of drug resistance in response to stress. This system offers a faster and cost-effective alternative to animal testing.
"Significantly, our results show that in response to chemotherapy, cancer cells can become drug resistant in just 10 days," reports co-author Dr Gonzalo Torga, from Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
As part of the study, the device was applied to track emergence of drug resistance in real time and observe events such as cell division, fusion and migration as well as changes in cell morphology and motility in cancer cells.