Organoids for Modeling (Colorectal) Cancer in a Dish

Abstract

Functional studies of primary cancer have been limited to animal models for a long time making it difficult to study aspects specific to human cancer biology. The development of organoid technology enabled us to culture human healthy and tumor cells as three-dimensional self-organizing structures in vitro for a prolonged time. Organoid cultures conserve the heterogeneity of the originating epithelium regarding cell types and tumor clonality. Therefore, organoids are considered an invaluable tool to study and genetically dissect various aspects of human cancer biology. In this review, we describe the applications, advantages, and limitations of organoids as human cancer models with the main emphasis on colorectal cancer.

Keywords

• organoids
• intratumoral heterogeneity
• cancer stem cells
• tumor immune microenvironment
• predictive in vitro models
• CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing