Quantitative Monitoring of the Response of Tumor Spheroids Cultured in 3D Environment by Optical Coherence Tomography

In order to have greater clinical prediction during the early stage of drug development process, tumor spheroid culture model is generally used to investigate the drug response. Since the tumor spheroids are cultured in three-dimensional environment, quantification under optical microscope may not be objective and the process is labor intensive. As such, we developed an inverted swept-source optical coherence tomography (OCT) system to quantitatively monitor the response of tumor spheroids under tested condition. The tumor spheroids were cultured in standard 96-well microplates mounted on a special-designed platform of the system. A 3 × 3 × 3 mm
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OCT reconstructed image could be captured within 5 seconds to enable high throughput assay. The tumor spheroids exposed to anti-cancer drug and modified by gene silencing were respectively monitored by the OCT system. Dynamic response of the tumor spheroids could be quantitatively analyzed to study the efficiency of anti-cancer drug and gene therapy during tumor development. The proposed OCT system has the compatibility of conventional cell culture consumables and practicability of drug development process. Non-invasive and quantitative assessment could be realized for the routine analysis in biological laboratories.