Context
Liver cancer is thus one of the three leading causes of cancer deaths worldwide. The most common liver cancer is hepatocellular carcinoma or hepatocarcinoma, developed from hepatocytes. Cancer development come together with a high modification of the matricial microenvironment, including increases of stiffness and collagen I rates. This tumoral microenvironment is a key element in cancer initiation, progression and propagation and should be include in in vitro models for anti-cancerous drug assessment to ensure a high predictability and a relevant selection of drug-candidates.
Our solution: 3 phenotypic screening using BIOMIMESYS®
We have developed BIOMIMESYS®Oncology, an hydroscaffold™ of 1kPa enriched in collagen I, which mimic the tumor ECM. In this matrix, we can culture hepatocarcinoma cells (HepG2 cell line) in 96-well plate format, allowing the screening of anti-cancerous molecules.
Control validation: As a cytotoxic control (positive control), we use staurosporine, an apoptosis inducer, which leads about 75% of dead cells. Non-treated cells (vehicle DMSO) are the negative control (about 97% of live cells in control wells).
The Z-factor is a measure of statistical effect size. It has been proposed for use in high-throughput and high content to validate that the response is large enough to warrant further attention.
σ : standard deviation ; μ : mean ; p : positive control (staurosporine) ; n : negative control (non-treated cells, vehicle DMSO)
In our assay, we obtain Z-factor > 0.5, which guarantee the robustness of the screening.
The service: we can incubate your molecules of interest on liver cancer cells in 3D in BIOMIMESYS® Oncology, to assess their therapeutic effect (decrease on the cancer cell viability or proliferation compared to the non-treated control) by fluorescence microscopy and automatized image analysis.
Read-out: quantitative cell viability (DRAQ7/Hoechst staining), specific cellular marker expression (according your needs).