Cell culture

3Rs aims to reduce, refine and replace the use of animals in research. Matrigel and similar basement membrane extracts are widely used in cell culture as an extracellular scaffold support and also provide key matrix proteins. The sacrifice of mice to generate Matrigel is one of the biggest single uses of animals in research. A new method to culture mammary epithelial cell (MEC) organoids shows that Matrigel use can be dramatically reduced or even (at a cost) eliminated.

There has been an increasing move towards the use of 3D cell culture as a means of functional differentiation in recent years. Although 2D cell cultures have been useful in a lot of ways, research has shown that they can differ significantly from in vivo conditions making it difficult to replicate the findings in a clinical setting. This, along with the failure rate and relatively high cost of drug development, has meant there is now an urgent need to find more predictive research models across all fields.

Cell Guidance Systems today launches our primary liver-derived microsome products. These new products join our growing range of primary cell products launched last year.

2D Primary human hepatocyte cultures can suffer from rapid dedifferentiation and loss of liver-specific functions. The advent of three-dimensional (3D) cell culture technologies, such as hepatocyte spheroids offered by Cell Guidance Systems has revolutionized the field.

Cell Guidance Systems is pleased to announce the availability of primary human hepatocytes for use in in-vitro toxicology assays.

Before a drug is deemed suitable for patients, it must undergo a rigorous testing process and cost-effectiveness analyses. The testing begins in a lab where researchers investigate the process behind a disease at either cellular or molecular level. In the past, this has been completed using 2D cell culture, which is convenient and accessible, but more often, cells are grown in a complex 3D environment.

Organoids and spheroids are the most commonly used approaches for establishing 3D cell cultures. This article will explore the similarities (and differences) between how they are made and what they do.

Animal derived materials remain an important part of biological research. Progress is being made to replace these with better defined non-animal alternatives. This is a huge task. The goal of developing alternatives to materials such as FBS and Matrigel® remains elusive.

According to the RSPCA, more than 100 million live animals, mostly mice, rats, fish and birds, are used in scientific research procedures each year. Although this is modest compared to the huge number of animals killed globally for food, which includes 50 billion chickens and 1.4 billion pigs, there is a strong drive to reduce the number of animals used in research. As well as experimentation on live animals, animal-derived materials (ADMs) are used to maintain cells cultured in-vitro.

Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting is an emerging technology that enables the fabrication of complex, biomimetic tissue constructs for applications in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and drug testing. Hydrogels, which are hydrophilic polymeric networks capable of absorbing large amounts of water, have emerged as promising bioinks for 3D bioprinting due to their biocompatibility, tunable mechanical properties, and ability to support cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation.