Differential effects of drugs on transport in a multi-layer 3D spheroid model

1. A method for treating a tumor, comprising the steps of:

a) screening for a selected drug that has an effect of inhibiting an efflux pump and not blocking gap junction communication in tumors, the screening method including the steps of,

i) seeding a cell culture medium that includes a drug to be screened with cells that express an efflux pump and form gap junctions in a non-adherent well to form a cell suspension,

ii) culturing the cells to thereby form self-assembled spheroids that have multiple layers, including a core and an outer shell,

iii) incubating the spheroids in the presence of a substrate of the efflux pump to thereby cause at least a portion of the substrate to penetrate the cell, and

iv) imaging the uptake of the substrate of the efflux pump and the distribution of the substrate within the spheroids, whereby an increase in concentration of substrate in the outer shells of the spheroids relative to that of spheroids that self-assembled in the absence of the drug indicates that the drug inhibits the efflux pump, and an increase of the substrate at the cores of the spheroids relative to that of spheroids that self-assembled in the absence of the drug indicates that gap junction communication has not been blocked by the drug, whereby the drug is designated a selected drug if the efflux pump is inhibited and gap junction communication is not blocked; and

b) administering the selected drug to a tumor with an anti-cancer drug, thereby treating the tumor.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the efflux pump is P-glycoprotein.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the substrate is calcein-AM.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the efflux pump is P-glycoprotein, and the substrate is calcein-AM.

5. The method of claim 1 , further including the step of combining the selected drug that is administered to the tumor with an anti-cancer drug.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein a drug that causes both an increase of substrate in the outer shells of the spheroids relative to that of total spheroids that self-assembled in the absence of the drug, and an increase in substrate at the cores of the spheroid relative to spheroids that self-assembled in the absence of the drug is the selected drug.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cells include at least one member selected from the group consisting of granulosa cells, cancer cells, primary human cells, cardiomyocytes, hepatocytes, kidney cells, renal cells, neural cells, skin cells and intestinal epithelial cells.

8. The method of claim 1 , further including the step of pre-staining the spheroids by combining the cell culture medium with a stain, and subsequently culturing the cells in the cell culture medium, whereby the resulting spheroids are stained.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the spheroids have a spheroid height less than about 300 μm.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the spheroids have a spheroid height less than about 210 μm.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the spheroids have a spheroid height less than about 205 μm.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein a drug that causes a decrease in the ratio of substrate percent or fraction in the core relative to that of the shell of the spheroids is designated as the selected drug.

13. The method of claim 1 , further including the step combining the cell culture medium with an anticancer drug that, if the selected drug were to be administered to a tumor, the selected drug would be administered to the tumor with the anti-cancer drug.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tumor includes cells selected from the group consisting of lung, ovarian, colon, liver, renal, neural, pancreatic, prostate, and breast cancer cells.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cell culture medium is seeded with KGN cells.