Bioprinting of Pancreatic Cancer Cells for Improved Drug Testing

Abstract

Currently, many drugs are preclinically tested on two-dimensional cell cultures. However, this method does not adequately replicate the cellular interactions or diffusion gradient that occur in three-dimensional tissues, leading to poor indicators of how a drug may affect human tissues. The objective of this project was to use bioprinted pancreatic cancer cell cultures as a platform for three-dimensional drug testing. Various bioink formulations of cellulose, gelatin, and alginate were evaluated to determine which provided the best printability and cell viability. A cellulose nanocrystal and alginate hydrogel showed superior printability due to its shear thinning properties. Additionally, initial cell viability was nearly 80%, and it remained above 60% over four days. Use of a custom spinning bioreactor at 50 rpm resulted in no improvements to cell viability. Overall, the system shows potential as a drug testing platform to evaluate the effectiveness of various drug formulations on three-dimensional pancreatic cancer cell cultures.