Cellularized polymeric microarchitectures for drug screening

Abstract

Despite the enormous applicability, the traditional, oversimplified in vitro two-dimensional (2D) monolayer cell culture models for preclinical drug screening towards evaluating pharmacological as well as toxicological properties fail to recapitulate structural, biological, and functional attributes of their in vivo counterparts. In this regard, biomimetic, three-dimensional (3D) microarchitectures have been fabricated using diverse microengineering strategies to reiterate the in vivo microenvironment in vitro by mimicking the sophisticated tissue-level extracellular matrix-like organization, including the cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions. These 3D microarchitectures, with the additional advantages of ease of fabrication and cost-effectiveness, can be applied for predicting the responses of diverse pharmaceutical agents, for instance, anticancer drugs, towards rapid progress in drug development. In this article, we emphasize on various 3D cellularized polymeric microarchitectures as in vitro models, alternative to traditional 2D models for drug screening. Further, we discuss diverse microengineering strategies used for the fabrication of such cellularized polymeric microcarriers and various architectural designs towards evaluating the efficacy of drug molecules in vitro, highlighting the pros and cons of the structure-, as well as performance-related attributes. Finally, we provide a summary of the perspectives, highlighting the lessons learned so far and outlook towards their further development.

Keywords

• Porous microcarriers
• Tumor models
• Biocompatibility
• Toxicity testing
• Drug screening
• Multicellular tumor agglomerates