Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Tumor cells within the microenvironment created by microcapsules have similar the characteristics of tumors in vivo.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the influence of microencapsulated culture on drug resistance of tumor cells.
METHODS: HepG2 cells obtained from monolayer culture in the exponential growth phase were microencapsulated cultured for 15 days. Again the cells were encapsulated in microcapsules for the microencapsulated culture. The procedure above was repeated for three times. The cells after microencapsulated culture were retrieved for further examination. The morphology, adhesion ability, proliferation ability, cell cycle, drug sensitivity and the expression of drug resistance-associated genes were detected through microscope, flow cytometry, Cell Counting Kit-8 assay and real-time PCR, respectively.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The HepG2 cells went through different times of microencapsulated culture showed no significant changes upon their morphology, adhesion ability, proliferation ability and cell cycle when they were grown in monolayer culture again. Compared with the cells without microencapsulated culture, the drugs resistance of the retrieved cells from microcapsules decreased along with the increasing of the microencapsulated culturing times. It was primarily due to the expression of drug resistance-associated genes declined. The results of this study suggested only cultured in the microcapsules, the tumor cells could maintain the higher drug resistance, and once back to the monolayer culture, the characteristics would disappear. Therefore, the tumor cells could acquire the in vivo-like drug resistance only when cultured in the microcapsules.